Matilda ran down a few stairs, and paused, not quite certain whether she would go back. She was angry. But she wanted to be friends with Judy and her brother; and the thought of her motto came to her help. "Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus;" – then certainly with courtesy and patience and kindness, as his servant should. She prayed for a kind spirit, and went back again.
"You've been five ages," cried the rich woman. "Well, what's broke?"
"Ma'am, Robert has let fall a tray full of claret glasses, and the salad dish with a pointed edge."
"That salad dish!" exclaimed Judy. "It was the richest in New York. The Queen of England had one like it; and nobody else but me in this country. I told Robert to keep it carefully done up in cotton; and never to wash it. That is what it is to have things."
"Don't it have to be washed?" inquired Matilda.
"I wish I could get into your head," said Judy impatiently and speaking quite as Judy, "that you are a maid servant and have no business to ask questions. I suppose you never knew anything about maid-servants till you came here; but you have been here long enough to learn that, if you were not perfectly bourgeoise!"
"Hush, Judy; you forget yourself," said David.
"She don't understand!" said the polite young lady.
"You do not get on with your proverb at this rate," he went on, glancing at Matilda, whose cheek gave token of some understanding.
"Stupid!" said Judy, returning to her charge and play, – "don't you understand that when that dish is used I wash it myself? And what claret glasses were they? I'll be bound they are the yellow set with my crest?"
"Those are the ones," Satinalia assented.
"That is what it is to have things! My life is one trouble. Satinalia!" —
"Ma'am."
"I haven't got my diamond bracelet on."
"No, ma'am; I do not see it."
"Well, go and see it. Find it and bring it to me. I want it on with this dress."
Matilda being instructed in this part of her duties, reported that she could not find the bracelet. The jewel box was ordered in, and examined, with a great many lamentations and conjectures as to the missing article. Finally the supposed owner declared she must write immediately to her jewellers to know if they had the bracelet, either for repair or safe keeping. Satinalia was despatched for a writing desk; and then for a candle.
"There are no tapers in this concern," Judy remarked; "and the note must be sealed. Somebody might find out that the bracelet is missing, and so it would be missing for ever, from me. Satinalia, what do you stand there for? Do you not hear me say I want a candle?"
"Can't you make believe as well?" asked Matilda, not Satinalia.
"You are too tiresome!" exclaimed Judy. "What do you know about it, at all, I should like to know. I think, when I give you the favour of playing with me, that is enough. You do as I tell you."
Matilda went for the candle, inwardly resolving that she would not enjoy the privilege of practising with Judy another time unless Norton were by. In his presence she was protected. A tear or two came from the little girl's eyes, before she got back to the lobby with the lighted candle. Judy perhaps wanted to make a tableau of herself at the letter sealing; for she took an elegant attitude, that threw her satin drapery imposingly about her and displayed her bare arm somewhat theatrically, gleaming with jewels and softened by the delicate lace of the scarf. But thereby came trouble. In a careless sweep of her arm, sealing-wax in hand, no doubt intended to be very graceful, the lace came in contact with the flame of the candle; and a hole was burnt in the precious fabric before anybody could do any thing to prevent it. Then there was dismay. Judy shrieked and flung herself down with her head on her arms. David and Matilda looked at the lace damage, and looked at each other. Even he looked grave.
"It's a pretty bad business," he concluded.
"O what shall I do! O what shall I do!" Judith cried. "O what will grandmamma say! O I wish Christmas never came!" —
"What sort of lace is this?" Matilda asked, still examining the scarf which David had let fall from his fingers. He thought it an odd question and did not answer. Judy was crying and did not hear.
"The best thing is to own up now, Judy," said her brother. "It is no use to cry."
"Yes, it is!" said Judy vehemently. "That's all a boy knows about it; but they don't know everything."
"I don't see the use of it, at all events," said David. "If tears were spiders, they might mend it."
"Spiders mend it!" repeated Judy. "David, you are enough to provoke a saint."
"But you are not a saint," said her brother. "It need not provoke you. What are you going to do?"
"Judy," said Matilda suddenly, "look here. Does your grandmother often wear this?"
"She'll be sure to want it now," said Judy, "if she never did before."
"It doesn't help the matter either," said David. "Putting off discovery is no comfort. I always think it is best to be out with a thing and have done with it."
"No," said Matilda. "Yes; – that isn't what I mean; but I mean, will Mrs. Lloyd want to wear this now for a few days – four or five?"
"She won't wear it before our party," said Judy. "There's nothing going on or coming off before that. O I wish our party was in Egypt."
"Then don't," said Matilda. "Look here, – listen. I think perhaps, – I don't promise, you know, for I am not sure, but I think perhaps I can mend this."
"You can't, my girl," said David, "unless you are a witch."
"You might as well mend the house!" said Judy impatiently. "It isn't like darning stockings, I can tell you."
"I know how to darn stockings," said Matilda; "and I do not mean to mend this that way. But I can mend some lace; and I think – perhaps – I can this. If you will let me, I'll try."
"How come you to think you can?" David asked. "I should say it was impossible, to anything but a fairy."
"I have been taught," said Matilda. "I did not like to learn, but I am very glad now I did. Do you like to have me try?"
"It is very kind of you," said David; "but I can't think you can manage it."
"Of course she can't!" said Judy contemptuously.
"If I only had the right thread," said Matilda, re-examining the material she had to deal with.
"What must it be?" David inquired.
"Look," said Matilda. "Very, very, very fine, to match this."
"Where can it be had? You are sure you will not make matters worse by doing any thing with it? Though I don't see how they could be worse, that's a fact. I'll get the thread."
So it was arranged between them, without reference to Judy. Matilda carried the scarf to her room; and Judy ungraciously and ungracefully let her go without a word.
"You are not very civil, Judy," said her brother.
"Civil, to that creature!"
"Civil to anybody," said David; "and she is a very well-behaved creature, as you call her."
"She was well-behaved at Candello's the other day, wasn't she?"
"Perhaps she was, after her fashion. Come, Judy, you have tried her to-night, and she has borne it as you wouldn't have borne it; or I either."
"She knew better than not to bear it," said Judy insolently.
"I wish you had known better than to give it her to bear. She was not obliged to bear it, either. Aunt Zara would not take it very well, if she was to hear it."
Judy only pouted, and then went on with a little more crying for the matter of the shawl. David gave up his part of the business.
Except looking for the thread. That he did faithfully; but he did not know where to go to find the article and of course did not find it. What he brought to Matilda might as well have been a cable, for all the use she could make of it in the premises. There was no more to do but to tell Mrs. Laval and get her help; and this was the course finally agreed upon between Matilda and David; Judy was not consulted.
Mrs. Laval heard the story very calmly; and immediately promised to get the thread, which she did. Matilda could not also obtain from her an absolute promise of secrecy. Mrs. Laval reserved that; only assuring Matilda that she would do no harm, and that she would say nothing at least until it should be seen whether or no Matilda had succeeded in the repair of the scarf.
And now for days thereafter Matilda was most of the time shut up in her room, with the door locked. It was necessary to keep out Judy; the work called for Matilda's whole and best attention. It was not an easy or a small undertaking. If anybody could have looked in through the closed door those days, he would have seen a little figure seated on a low foot-cushion, with a magnificent lace drapery lying over her lap and falling to the floor. On a chair at her side were her thread and needles and scissors; and very delicately and slowly Matilda's fingers were busy trying to weave again the lost meshes of the exquisite lace. They worked and worked, hour after hour, before she could be certain whether she was going to succeed; and the blood flushed into Matilda's cheeks with the excitement and the intense application. At last, Saturday afternoon, enough progress was made to let the little girl see that, as she said to herself, "it would do;" and she put the scarf away that afternoon feeling that she was all ready for Sunday to come now, and could enjoy it without a drawback of any sort.
And so she did – even Dr. Broadman and his parti-coloured church. Matilda's whole heart had turned back to its old course; that course which looks to Jesus all the way. Sunlight lies all along that way, as surely as one's face is turned to the sun; so Matilda felt very happy. She hoped, too, that she was gaining in the goodwill of her adopted cousins; David certainly had spoken and looked civilly and pleasantly again; and Matilda's heart to-day was without a cloud.
Norton declined to go with her to Sunday school, however, and she went alone. No stranger now, she took her place in the class as one at home; and all the business and talk of the hour was delightful to her. Sarah was there of course; after the school services were ended Matilda seized her opportunity.
"Whereabouts do you live, Sarah?"
Matilda had been turning over various vague thoughts in her mind, compounded from experiences of Lilac lane and the snowy corner of Fourteenth street; her question was not without a purpose. But Sarah answered generally, that it was not very far off.
"Where is it?" said Matilda. "I should like, if I can, and maybe I can, I should like to come and see you."
"It is a poor place," said Sarah. "I don't think you would like to come into it."
"But you live there," said the other child.
"Yes" – said Sarah uneasily; "I live there when I ain't somewheres else; and I'm that mostly."
"Where is that 'somewhere else'? I'll come to see you there, if I can."
"You have seen me there," said the street-sweeper. "'Most days I'm there."
"I have been past that corner a good many times, Sarah, when I couldn't see you anywhere."
"'Cos the streets was clean. There warn't no use for my broom then. Nobody'd ha' wanted it, or me. I'd ha' been took up, maybe."
"What do you do then, Sarah?"
"Some days I does nothing; some days I gets something to sell, and then I does that."
"But I would like to know where you live."
"You wouldn't like it, I guess, if you saw it. Best not," said Sarah. "They wouldn't let you come to such a place, and they hadn't ought to. I'd like to see you at my crossing," she added with a smile as she moved off. Matilda, quite lost in wonderment, stood looking after her as she went slowly down the aisle. Her clothes were scarcely whole, yet put on with an evident attempt at tidiness; her bonnet was not a bonnet, but the unshapely and discoloured remains of what had once had the distinction. Her dress was scarcely clean; yet as evidently there was an effort to be as neat as circumstances permitted. What sort of a home could it be, where so nice a girl as Matilda believed this one was, could reach no more actual and outward nicety in her appearance?
"You have made Sarah Staples' acquaintance, I see;" Mr. Wharncliffe's voice broke her meditations.
"I saw her at her crossing one day. Isn't she a good girl?"
"She is a good girl, I think. What do you think?"
"O I think so," said Matilda; "I thought so before; but – Mr. Wharncliffe – I am afraid she is very poor."
"I am not afraid so; I know it."
"She will not tell me where she lives," said Matilda rather wistfully.
"Do you want to know?"
"Yes, I wanted to know; but I think she did not want I should."
"Did you think of going to see her, that you tried to find out?"
"I would have liked to go, if I could," said Matilda, looking perplexed. "But she seemed to think I wouldn't like it, or that I ought not, or something."
"She is right," said Mr. Wharncliffe. "You would not take any pleasure in seeing Sarah's home; and you cannot go there alone. But with me you may go. I will take you there, if you choose."
"Now?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, sir. I would like it."
Truth to tell, Matilda would have liked a walk in any direction and for any purpose, in company with that quiet, pleasant, kind, strong face. She had taken a great fancy and given a great trust already to her new teacher. That walk did not lessen either. Hand in hand they went along, through poor streets and in a neighbourhood that grew more wretched as they went further; yet though Matilda was in a measure conscious of this, she seemed all the while to be walking in a sort of spotless companionship; which perhaps she was. The purity made more impression upon her than the impurity. And, withal that the part of the city they were coming to was very miserable, and more wicked than miserable, Matilda saw it through an atmosphere of very pure and sweet talk.
She drew a little closer to her guide, however, as one after another sight and sound of misery struck her senses. A knot of drunken men wrestling; single specimens, very ugly to see; voices loud and brutal coming out of drinking shops; haggard-looking, dirty women, in dismal rags or finery worse yet; crying children; scolding mothers; a population of boys and girls of all ages, who evidently knew no Sabbath, and to judge by appearances had no home; and streets and houses and doorways so squalid, so encumbered with garbage and filth, so morally distant from peace and purity, that Matilda felt as if she were walking with an angel through regions where angels never stay. Perhaps Mr. Wharncliffe noticed the tightening clasp of her fingers upon his. He paused at length; it was before a large, lofty brick building at the corner of a block. No better in its moral indications than other houses around; this was merely one of mammoth proportions. At the corner a flight of stone steps went down to a cellar floor. Standing just at the top of these steps, Matilda could look down and partly look in; though there seemed little light below but what came from this same entrance way. The stone steps were swept. But at the bottom there was nothing but a mud floor; doubtless dry in some weathers, but at this time of encumbering snow it was stamped into mud. Also down there, in the doubtful light, Matilda discerned an overturned broken chair and a brown jug; and even caught a glimpse of the corner of a small cooking stove. People lived there! or at least cooked and eat, or perhaps sold liquor. Matilda looked up, partly in wonder, partly in dismay, to Mr. Wharncliffe's face.
"This is the place," he said; and his face was grave enough then. "Would you like to go in?"
"This?" said Matilda bewildered. "This isn't the place? She don't live here? Does anybody live here?"
"Come down and let us see. You need not be afraid," he said. "There is no danger."
Very unwillingly Matilda let the hand that held her draw her on to descend the steps. If this was Sarah's home, she did not wonder at the girl's hesitation about making it known. Sarah was quite right; it was no place fit for Matilda to come to. How could she help letting Sarah see by her face how dreadful she thought it?
Meanwhile she was going down the stone steps. They landed her in a cellar room; it was nothing but a cellar; and without the clean dry paving of brick or stone which we have in the cellars of our houses. The little old cooking stove was nearly all the furniture; two or three chairs or stools were around, but not one of them whole; and in two corners were heaps, of what? Matilda could not make out anything but rags, except a token of straw in one place. There was a forlorn table besides with a few specimens of broken crockery upon it. A woman was there; very poor though not bad-looking; two bits of ragged boys; and lastly Sarah herself, decent and grave, as she had just come from Sunday school, sitting on a box with her lesson book in her hand. She got up quickly and came forward with a surprised face, in which there shone also that wintry gleam of pleasure that Matilda had seen in it before. The pleasure was for the sight of Mr. Wharncliffe; perhaps Sarah was shy of her other visiter. However, Mr. Wharncliffe took the conversation upon himself, and left it to nobody to feel or shew awkwardness; which both Matilda and Sarah were ready to do. He had none; Matilda thought he never could have any, anywhere; so gracious, so free, his words and manner were in this wretched place; so pleasant and kind, without a trace of consciousness that he had ever been in a better room than this. And yet his boot heels made prints in the damp earth floor. The poor slatternly woman roused up a little to meet his words of cheer and look of sympathy; and Sarah came and stood by his shoulder. It was an angel's visit. Matilda saw it, as well as she knew that she had been walking with one; he brought some warmth and light even into that drear region; some brightness even into those faces; though he staid but a few minutes. Giving then a hearty hand grasp, not to his scholar only but to the poor woman her mother, whom Matilda thought it must be very disagreeable to touch, he with his new scholar came away.
Matilda's desire to talk or wish to hear talking had suddenly ended. She threaded the streets in a maze; and Mr. Wharncliffe was silent; till block after block was passed and gradually a region of comparative order and beauty was opening to them. At last he looked down at his little silent companion.
"This is a pleasanter part of the city, isn't it?"
"O Mr. Wharncliffe!" Matilda burst forth, "why do they live there?"
"Because they cannot live anywhere else."
"They are so poor as that?"
"So poor as that. And a great many other people are so poor as that."
"How much would it cost?"
"For them to move? Well, it would cost the rent of a better room; and they haven't got it. The mother cannot earn much; and Sarah is the chief stay of the family."
"Have they nothing to live upon, but the pennies she gets for sweeping the crossing?"
"Not much else. The mother makes slops, I believe; but that brings in only a few more coppers a week."
"How much would a better room cost, Mr. Wharncliffe?"
"A dollar a week, maybe; more or less, as the case might be."
There was silence again; until Mr. Wharncliffe and Matilda had come to Blessington avenue and were walking down its clean and spacious sideway.
"Mr. Wharncliffe," said Matilda suddenly, "why are some people so rich and other people so poor?"
"There are a great many reasons."
"What are some of them? can't I understand?"
"You can understand this; that people who are industrious, and careful, and who have a talent for business, get on in the world better than those who are idle or wasteful or self-indulgent or wanting in cleverness."
"Yes; I can understand that."
"The first class of people make money, and their children, who maybe are neither careful nor clever, inherit it; along with their business friends, and their advantages and opportunities; while the children of the idle and vicious inherit not merely the poverty but to some extent the other disadvantages of their parents. So one set are naturally growing richer and richer and the other naturally go on from poor to poorer."
"Yes, I understand that," said Matilda, with a perplexed look. "But some of these poor people are not bad nor idle?"
"Perhaps their parents have been. Or without business ability; and the one thing often leads to another."
"But" – said Matilda, and stopped.
"What is it?"
"It puzzles me, sir. I was going to say, God could make it all better; and why don't he?"
"He will do everything for us, Matilda," said her friend gravely, "except those things he has given us to do. He will help us to do those; but he will not prevent the consequences of our idleness or disobedience. Those we must suffer; and others suffer with us, and because of us."
"But then" – said Matilda looking up, – "the rich ought to take care of the poor."
"That is what the Lord meant we should do. We ought to find them work, and see that they get proper pay for it; and not let them die of hunger or disease in the mean while."
"Well, why don't people do so?" said Matilda.
"Some try. But in general, people have not come yet to love their neighbours as themselves."
"Thank you, Mr. Wharncliffe," Matilda said, as he stopped at the foot of Mrs. Lloyd's steps.
He smiled, and inquired, "For what?"
"For taking me there."
"Why?" said he, growing grave.
But a little to his surprise the little girl hurried up the steps without making him any answer.
In the house, she hurried in like manner up the first flight of stairs and up the second flight. Then, reaching her own floor, where nobody was apt to be at that time of Sunday afternoons, the child stopped and stood still.
She did not even wait to open her own door; but clasping the rail of the balusters she bent down her little head there and burst into a passion of weeping. Was there such utter misery in the world, and near her, and she could not relieve it? Was it possible that another child, like herself, could be so unlike herself in all the comforts and helps and hopes of life, and no remedy? Matilda could not accept the truth which her eyes had seen. She recalled Sarah's gentle, grave face, and sober looks, as she had seen her on her crossing, along with the gleam of a smile that had come over them two or three times; and her heart almost broke. She stood still, sobbing, thinking herself quite safe and alone; so that she started fearfully when she suddenly heard a voice close by her. It was David Bartholomew, come out of his room.
"What in the world's to pay?" said he. "What is the matter? You needn't start as if I were a grisly bear! But what is the matter, Tilly?"
Matilda was less afraid of him lately; and she would have answered, but there was too much to say. The burden of her heart could not be put into words at first. She only cried aloud, —
"Oh David! – Oh David!"
"What then?" said David. "What has Judy been doing?"
"Judy! O nothing. I don't mind Judy."
"Very wise of you, I'm sure, and I am very glad to hear it. What has troubled you? something bad, I should judge."
"Something so bad, you could never think it was true," said Matilda, making vain efforts to dry off the tears which kept welling freshly forth.
"Have you lost something?"
"I? O no; I haven't got any thing to lose. Nothing particular, I mean. But I have seen such a place" —
"A place?" said David, very much puzzled. "What about the place?"
"Oh, David, such a place! And people live there!" – Matilda could not get on.
David was curious. He stood and waited, while Matilda sobbed and tried to stop and talk to him. For, seeing that he wanted to hear, it was a sort of satisfaction to tell to some one what filled her heart. And at last, being patient, he managed to get a tolerably clear report of the case. He did not run off at once then. He stood still looking at Matilda.
"It's disgraceful," he said. "It didn't use to be so among my people."
"And, oh David, what can we do? What can I do? I don't feel as if I could bear to think that Sarah must sleep in that place to-night. Why the floor was just earth, damp and wet. And not a bedstead – just think! What can I do, David?"
"I don't see that you can do much. You cannot build houses to lodge all the poor of the city. That would take a good deal of money; more than you have got, little one."
"But – I can't reach them all, but I can do something for this one," said Matilda. "I must do something."
"Even that would take a good deal of money," said David.
"I must do something," Matilda repeated. And she went to her own room to ponder how, while she was getting ready for dinner. Could she save anything from her Christmas money?