CHAPTER I.
A LITTLE MATCH-SELLER.
HE was a pathetic little figure for those who had eyes to spare for anybody so insignificant as a little street match-seller. She had been shivering just before in the chill February blast; but a dancing sunbeam had forced its way through the grey, hurrying clouds, and an answering smile seemed to light up the face of the child, as she watched it creeping nearer and nearer, till she could feel the warmth touch her bare feet like a caress.
Some boys not far off were playing marbles in the gutter, and the little girl was watching the play with great interest. She had a wholesome fear of boys, and seldom or never attempted to exchange remarks with them, shrinking away if they seemed disposed to address her; but she took a keen interest in their games for all that, and was very ardently on the side of a curly-headed urchin with carroty, unkempt locks, who was the happy possessor of a couple of very fine coloured marbles that quite put all the others into the shade.
Bright colour of any sort was the little girl’s delight. No matter whether it was the glow of the sky, the sunshine upon red chimney stacks, or the dresses of the passers-by, anything that was gaily coloured was such a joy to her that her little face would smile all over whilst the vision of colour flitted before her eyes.
It was a pathetic little face, with singularly delicate features for a child of the people; framed in a tangled mass of short, yellow hair, which if properly dressed and cared for would have been a real beauty. The blue eyes could sparkle with joy or swim in tears with equal readiness, just as the varying mood of childhood prompted. For the little one was singularly emotional for one of her hard bringing up, and was quickly moved to sorrow or pleasure by the passing events of daily life.
Just as the game of marbles came to an end, and the boys scampered away to their respective duties or amusements, a great church clock somewhere high overhead boomed out the hour of two. The little girl’s face instantly took upon it a rather eager expression, and seizing her matches in a firmer grip, she ran a few steps to a certain corner, and there stationing herself in a nook, to which she was evidently no stranger, she began looking intently and expectantly in a certain direction.
Crowds of business men were hurrying along, some to the train, others to the various omnibuses, which passed in endless succession at this busy junction of streets. The child held out her matches, and mechanically offered them for sale, but her eyes were always bent in one direction; and had anybody been watching her face, he could not have failed to note the sudden illumination which beamed out over it, as though kindled by some light from within.
Evidently somebody was coming for whom the little one was waiting with eager expectancy. The lips parted in a smile, the eyes began to sparkle and dance, a flush crept into the pale cheek. A moment or two later and another expression swept over the sensitive face, and the child said half aloud—
“Oh, he is not alone! He has a lady with him! Perhaps he will not notice me to-day.”
Evidently much hinged upon this vital point; for the colour came and went in the child’s face, and her eyes were fixed immovably upon a certain face belonging to somebody in that hurrying throng. Her lips were parted in intense absorption, and perhaps there was something magnetic in the fixed gaze, for the successful young barrister, Bertram Clayton, who was walking with his sister through the crowded thoroughfare, paused suddenly just as he drew near to the child, and looking about him said in a pleasant voice—
“Ah, here is little Allumette! I must have a box of matches if they are not too dear to-day!”
The child’s face was rippling all over now. At first his grave bargaining over her wares, and his way of shaking his head over their costliness, had half frightened her, and she had sometimes abated their price, thinking that she must be in the wrong. But now that she had learned by experience that the gentleman always gave her in the end double and treble their value, she was no longer abashed, and entered with a shy spirit into the game of bargains.
Almost always this tall, handsome gentleman was alone. Now and then he had a black-coated, grave-faced friend with him, in which case he seldom stopped to buy matches or speak to the child, but just gave her a passing nod if he caught sight of her wistful face and appealing blue eyes. Never before in her experiences had he been with a lady, and the child’s eyes lighted eagerly as they rested upon the soft fur and bright crimson cloth which composed the lady’s dress.
“What a duck of a child!” she exclaimed to her brother, “I must really give her something!”
The gentleman had finished his bargain and got his matches by this time, and the little girl was smiling over the pennies in her hand. Not that it was the pennies so freely given which made this customer more to her than all the rest put together: it was the kind smile beaming from his eyes, the tones of his voice, the undefined feeling she always had that he looked out for her, and sometimes thought of her when he was elsewhere. For had he not brought her now and then a bag of sweets, or some trifling toy, such as are hawked about in the streets?
By this time the lady had opened her purse, and now held up before the child’s astonished eyes a large piece of silver money that shone brilliantly in the gleam of sunshine.
“Little Allumette,” she said, using the name by which the gentleman always called her—she never could guess why, “do you know what this is?”
“It is money, ma’am; beautiful new money!”
“Have you ever had anything like it before?”
“Only bright pennies sometimes, ma’am; not beautiful silver money like that.”
“And what would you do with a whole silver crown if you had one of your very own?”
The child’s eyes sparkled, but no words came. The idea of being possessor of such fabulous wealth was too big a one to be grasped in a moment. The lady laughed at the expression upon the upturned face, and put the big silver coin into her hand.
“There, little Allumette, there is a keepsake for you. You have such a wise little face that I am sure you will make a good use of it. Come, Bertram, we must not miss our train.”
Before the child could find words in which to thank the lady the crowds had swallowed up both brother and sister, and she was left alone at her corner, grasping the wonderful piece of fairy silver (for such indeed it seemed to her) tightly in her hand, her heart beating thick and fast with the excitement of such a wonderful piece of fortune’s favour.
It was Saturday afternoon, and trade was brisk. She had soon sold all her matches, and was ready to turn her feet homewards, but first she must think what to do with this wonderful treasure-trove. That was her own—her very own. She scarcely dared to look at it as she walked the streets; she was afraid lest some passer-by might get a glimpse at the shining coin, and might set upon her and rob her of it.
Where could she put it to keep it safe? At home there was no nook or corner she could call her own. Poor little Allumette! Her life was a sad and shadowed one now, and yet once nobody would ever have guessed that she would come to selling matches in the streets.
Her father had been a clever and respectable artisan, and her mother a farmer’s daughter. But Allumette could not remember a mother’s care, for her mother had died whilst she was but a baby, and her father had married again a woman of a very different stamp. Moreover, misfortunes had come upon him, and he had lost his health and then his work. Three years before, when Allumette was only five, he had died, and the stepmother had almost at once married a widower with three children—she herself had four.
So that Allumette had now neither father nor mother, and though she was still permitted to live in the double attic where this heterogeneous family party made their home, she was nobody’s child, and nobody wanted her. She had to earn her own living in the streets, and though she met with no ill-treatment at home, she received no love or tenderness, and knew that her presence was felt to be a nuisance by the parents of the other children.
Moreover, some of the boys were of an age when teasing becomes a delight, and Allumette was always reckoned as fair game, for she had nobody to stand by her and take her part.
It was before the days of School Boards, and Allumette had no chance of learning except at a ragged school which she frequented as often as she could in the evenings. But if she had been unlucky with her matches by day, she was always sent out again to dispose of her stock later on, and then she was too late and too tired ever to think of learning anything.
And yet the child was not altogether unhappy in her life. She made interests for herself, and sometimes friends too. Had she not several customers who showed her kindness in a fitful way? and was there not, above all, “her gentleman,” as she called him, who was more to her than all the rest put together? And was there not the old cobbler and his wife at the end of the alley, who were always glad to see her when she came? She did not like to go too often, because Mrs. Gregg would give her bread and treacle, and she did not think they always had enough to eat themselves; but it was always pleasant to sit by their little fire and hear the old man’s stories; and to-day she bent her steps there with great eagerness, for she meant to spend her own two pennies (given by the gentleman) on some herrings for them, and then she would not mind sharing the frugal meal, and could tell them about her wonderful windfall, and ask their advice as to what she could do with her treasure.
Allumette’s home was up a number of rickety stairs in a narrow court, and when she arrived there she found her stepmother in the midst of a Saturday clean, and by no means prepared to welcome anybody. The child only paused to hand in her money, and then disappeared down the stairs with alacrity; for one of the most valued privileges which had been accorded her was that her time was her own when she had disposed of her stock of matches.
Her bare feet went pattering up the alley, which grew darker and narrower towards the end. At the end stood a tall, grim-looking house, let out in rooms to a poor class of tenants, the lowest floor, comprising two rooms and a tiny kitchen beyond, being rented to the cobbler, whose front room was a sort of workshop where he was always to be seen cobbling and patching old boots, many of which seemed almost past the skill of even his dexterous fingers.
Sometimes Allumette picked up old boots in rubbish heaps and brought them to him, and often she found bits of leather which were useful to him in patching. The little girl was fond of the old couple, and they of her. It was always a treat to her to go and sit in the quiet of their room.
The herrings were bought at a shop in the alley, where they were to be had cheaper than anywhere else; and with her odorous burden she hastened to the little house at the end, where her old friends received her with smiles and kind words.
It was a slack afternoon with the cobbler, as he had taken home his last batch of work, and had not much in hand until fresh orders arrived. So he sat holding the child’s hand while she poured into his ears her wonderful tale, and displayed before his astonished eyes her wonderful shining coin.
Mrs. Gregg came up to look and admire and wonder, and eager was the discussion which followed.
“No, I shan’t spend it—I shall keep it,” said Allumette. “The lady said it was a sort of keepsake. I shall keep it and look at it sometimes; only I don’t know where it will be safe.”
“I’ll make you a little leather bag for it, ducky,” said the old man, “and then I’ll make a little hole in the crown itself, if you like, and you can hang it round your neck, bag and all. It’ll be safest so, as you might lose it out of the bag if ’twasn’t bored through itself; but we’ll make it all safe for you!”
Allumette was delighted. She watched the whole process with eager interest, and when the coin was wrapped in its covering and hung about her neck, her little face beamed all over with joy.
“It feels as if it would bring me good luck!” she cried, with dancing eyes.
“Perhaps it will for sure!” said the old couple fondly.
A happy child was Allumette that night when she fell asleep, though she little dreamt of the golden hours that were in store for her.
