Читать книгу Silverthorns - Molesworth Mrs. - Страница 3

A hearty but somewhat unnecessarily noisy welcome awaited them. Arthur, Ted, and Noble were all in the drawing-room with their mother. She had insisted on the muddy boots being discarded, but beyond this, as the boys were tired, and it was late when they came in, she had not held out; and Charlotte glanced at the rough coats and lounging-about attitudes with a feeling of annoyance, which it was well “the boys” did not see. “Mamma” herself was always a pleasant object to look upon, even in her old black grenadine; she, thought Charlotte, with a throb of pride, could not seem out of place in the most beautiful of the Silverthorns’ drawing-rooms. But the boys – how can they be so rough and messy? thought the fastidious little sister.

“It is all with being poor – all,” she said to herself.

But she felt ashamed when Arthur drew forward the most comfortable chair for her to the fire, and Ted offered to carry her hat and jacket up-stairs for her.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll run up-stairs, and be down again in a minute. It’s messy to take one’s things off in the drawing-room,” and so saying, she jumped up and ran away.

“What a fuss Charlotte always makes about being messy, as she calls it,” said Ted. “She’s a regular old maid.”

“Come, Ted, that’s not fair. It’s not only for herself Charlotte’s tidy!” Arthur exclaimed.

“No, indeed,” said Noble, chiming in.

“You needn’t all set upon me like that,” said Ted. “I’m sure I always thank her when she tidies my things. I can’t be tidy, and that’s just all about it. When a fellow’s grinding at lessons from Monday morning till Saturday night.”

This piteous statement was received with a shout of laughter, Ted’s “lessons” being a proverb in the house, as it was well known that they received but the tag end of the attention naturally required for football, and cricket, and swimming, and stamp-collecting, and carpentering, and all his other multifarious occupations.

Mrs Waldron, scenting squabbles ahead, came to the rescue.

“Tell us your adventures, Jerry. Is it a fine evening? Where is your father?”

“He’ll be in in a moment,” Jerry replied. “He went round to the stables; I think he had something to say to Sam. Yes, mamma, we had a very nice drive. It was beautiful moonlight out at Silverthorns, but coming back it clouded over.”

“Silverthorns!” Noble repeated. “Have you been out there too? Why, we’ve all been there – how funny! I thought mamma said you had gone to Gretham. I say, isn’t Silverthorns awfully pretty?”

As he said the words the door opened, and Charlotte and her father came in together. They had met in the hall. Mr Waldron answered Noble’s question, which had indeed been addressed to no one in particular.

“It is a beautiful old place,” he said. “But ‘east or west, home is best.’ I like to come in and see you all together with your mother, boys. And what a capital fire you’ve made up!” He went towards it as he spoke, Charlotte half mechanically following him. “It is chilly out of doors. Gipsy, your hands are quite cold.” He drew her close to the fire and laid one arm on her shoulder. She understood the little caress, but some undefined feeling of contradiction prevented her responding to it.

“I’m not particularly cold, papa, thank you,” she said drily.

Mrs Waldron looked up quietly at the sound of Charlotte’s voice. She knew instinctively that all was not in tune, but she also knew it would not do to draw attention to this, and she was on the point of hazarding some other remark when Jerry broke in. Jerry somehow always seemed to know what other people were feeling.

“Papa,” he said, “were you in earnest when you said there was a haunted room at Silverthorns?”

Every one pricked up his or her ears at this question.

“I was in earnest so far that I know there is a room there that is said to be haunted,” he replied.

“And how?” asked Charlotte. “If any one slept there would they be found dead in the morning, or something dreadful like that?”

“No, no, not so bad as that, though no one ever does sleep there. It’s an old story in the family. I heard it when I was a boy.”

“Don’t you think it’s very wrong to tell stories like that to frighten children?” said Charlotte severely.

“And pray who’s begging for it at the present moment?” said Mr Waldron, amused at her tone.

“Papa! we’re not children. It isn’t like as if it were Amy and Marion,” she said, laughing a little. “Do tell us.”

“Really, my dear, there’s nothing to tell. It is believed that some long ago Osbert, a selfish and cruel man by all accounts, haunts the room in hopes of getting some one to listen to his repentance, and to promise to make amends for his ill-deeds. He treated the poor people about very harshly; and not them only, he was very unkind to his daughter, because he was angry with her for not being a son, and left her absolutely penniless, so that the poor thing, being delicate and no longer young, died in great privation. And he left the property, which was not entailed, to a very distant cousin, hardly to be counted as a cousin except that he had the same name. The legend is that his ghost will never be at peace till Silverthorns comes to be the property of the descendant of some female Osbert.”

“Do you know I never heard that story before? It is curious,” said Mrs Waldron thoughtfully.

“But it’s come all right now. Lady Mildred’s a woman,” said Ted, in his usual hasty way.

“On the contrary, it’s very far wrong,” said his father. “Lady Mildred is not an Osbert at all. Silverthorns was left her by Mr Osbert to do what she likes with, some people say. If she leaves it away, quite out of the Osbert line, it will be a hard punishment for the poor ghost, supposing he knows anything about it, as his regard for the family name went so far as to make him treat his own child unjustly.”

“Is it certain that Lady Mildred has the power of doing what she likes with it?” asked Mrs Waldron.

“I’m sure I can’t say. I suppose any one who cares to know can see Mr Osbert’s will by paying a shilling,” said Mr Waldron lightly. “Though, by the bye, I have a vague remembrance of hearing that the will was worded rather peculiarly, so that it did not tell as much as wills generally do. It referred to some other directions, or something of that kind. General Osbert and his family doubtless know all they can. It is not an enormous fortune after all. Lady Mildred has a small income of her own, and she spends a great deal on the place. It will be much better worth having after her reign than before it.”

“Any way she won’t leave it to me, so I don’t much care what she does with it,” said Ted, rising from his seat, and stretching his long lanky arms over his head.

“No, that she won’t,” said Mr Waldron, with rather unnecessary emphasis.

“My dear Ted,” said his mother, “if you are so sleepy as all that you had better go to bed. I’m not very rigorous, as you know, but I don’t like people yawning and stretching themselves in the drawing-room.”

“All right, mother. I will go to bed,” Ted replied. “Arthur and Noble, you’d better come too.”

“Thank you for nothing,” said Noble, who as usual was buried in a book. “I’m going to finish this chapter first. I’m not like some people I know, who have candles and matches at the side of their beds, in spite of all mother says.”

Mrs Waldron turned to Ted uneasily.

“Is that true, Ted,” she said, “after all your promises?”

Ted looked rather foolish.

“Mother,” he said, “it’s only when I’m behind with my lessons, and I think that I’ll wake early and give them a look over in the morning. It isn’t like reading for my own pleasure.”

Another laugh greeted this remark, Ted “reading for his own pleasure” would have been something new.

“But indeed, mother, you needn’t worry about it,” said Arthur consolingly. “I advise you to let Ted’s candle and matches remain peaceably at the side of his bed if it pleases him. There they will stay, none the worse, you may be sure. It satisfies his conscience and does no harm, for there is not the least fear of his ever waking early.”

Ted looked annoyed. It is not easy to take chaff pleasantly in public, especially in the public of one’s own assembled family.

“I don’t see why you need all set on me like that,” he muttered. “I think Noble might have held his tongue.”

“So do I,” said Charlotte, half under her breath. Then she too got up. “I’m going to bed. Good night, mamma,” and she stooped to kiss her mother; and in a few minutes, Noble having shut up his book resolutely at the end of the chapter, all the brothers had left the room, and the husband and wife were alone.

Mrs Waldron leant her pretty head on the arm of the sofa for a minute or two without speaking. She was tired, as she well might be, and somehow on Saturday night she felt as if she might allow herself to own to it. Mr Waldron looked at her with a rather melancholy expression on his own face.

“Yes,” he said aloud, though in reality speaking to himself, “we pay pretty dear for our power of sympathising.”

“What did you say?” asked his wife, looking up.

“Nothing, dear. I was only thinking of some talk I had with Charlotte – I was trying to show her the advantages of poverty,” he said, smiling.

“Poverty!” repeated his wife; “but nothing like poverty comes near her, or any of them, – at least it is not as bad as that.”

“No, no. I should not have used the word. I should rather have said, as I did to her, of not being rich.”

“Charlotte does not seem herself,” said Mrs Waldron. “I wonder if anything is troubling her.”

“She is waking up, perhaps,” said the father, “and that is a painful process sometimes. Though she is so clever, she is wonderfully young for her age too. Life has been smooth for her, even though we are so poor – not rich,” he corrected with a smile.

“But is there anything special on her mind? What made you talk in that way?”

“She will be telling you herself of some report – oh, I dare say it is true enough – that Lady Mildred Osbert is arranging to send this niece of hers, this girl whom, as I told you, she is said to have adopted, to Miss Lloyd’s. And of course they are all gossiping about it, chattering about the girl’s beauty and magnificence, and all the rest of it. After all, Amy, I sometimes wish we had not sent Charlotte to school at all; there seems always to be silly chatter.”

“But what could we do? We could not possibly have afforded a governess – for one girl alone; and I, even if I had the time, I am not highly educated enough myself to carry on so very clever a girl as Charlotte.”

“No; I sometimes wish she were less clever. She might have been more easily satisfied.”

“But she is not dissatisfied,” said Mrs Waldron. “On the contrary, she has seemed more than content, she is full of interest and energy. I have been so glad she was clever; it is so much easier for a girl with decidedly intellectual tastes to be happy in a circumscribed life like ours.”

“Yes, in one sense. But Charlotte has other tastes too. She would enjoy the beauty, the completeness of life possible when people are richer, intensely. And at school she has been made a sort of pet and show pupil of. It will be trying to a girl of fifteen to see a new queen in her little world.”

“But – she need not interfere with Charlotte. It is not probable that she will be as talented.”

“That was one of Jerry’s consolations,” said Mr Waldron with a smile. “It was rather a pity I happened to take Charlotte to Silverthorns to-night. It seems to have deepened the impression.”

“She only waited outside. My dear, we cannot keep the children in cotton-wool.”

“No, of course not. It is perhaps because going to Silverthorns always irritates me myself, though I am ashamed to own it, even to you. But to remember my happy boyhood there – when I was treated like a child of the house. It was false kindness of my grandmother and my grand-uncle. But they meant it well, and I never let her know I felt it to have been so.”

“Of course your uncle would have done something more securely for you had he foreseen all your grandmother’s losses. One must remember that.”

“Yes; but it isn’t only the money, Amy. It is Lady Mildred’s determined avoidance of acknowledging us in any way. The cool way she treats me entirely as the local lawyer. She has no idea I feel it. I take good care of that. And then, to be sure, she never saw me there long ago! Grandmother never entered the doors after her brother’s death.”

“No, so you have told me. I suppose Lady Mildred, if she ever gives a thought to us at all, just thinks we are some distant poor relations of a bygone generation of Osberts,” said Mrs Waldron. “And after all it is pretty much the state of the case, except for your having been so associated with the place as a child. I am always glad that the children have never heard of the connection. It would only have been a source of mortification to them.”

“Yes; and my long absence from the neighbourhood made it easy to say nothing about it. You will know how to speak to Charlotte when she tells you, as no doubt she will, about this new class-fellow. I wish it had not happened, for even if the girl is a very nice girl, I should not wish them to make friends,” said Mr Waldron. “It would probably only lead to complications more or less disagreeable. As Lady Mildred has chosen absolutely to ignore us as relations, I would not allow the children to receive anything at all, even the commonest hospitality, from her.”

“I wonder if the girl is nice,” said Mrs Waldron. “She must be spoilt. I should be afraid, if Lady Mildred makes such a pet of her. Do you know her name?” Mr Waldron shook his head.

“She is a niece of Lady Mildred’s, I believe – perhaps a grand-niece. She may be a Miss Meredon – that was Lady Mildred’s maiden name, but I really don’t know. I did not catch her name when her aunt spoke to her.”

“Oh, you saw her then?” exclaimed Mrs Waldron with some surprise. “What is she like?”

Mr Waldron smiled.

“Amy, you’re nearly as great a baby as Charlotte,” he said. “She was quite excited when I said I had seen this wonderful young person. What is she like? Well, I must own that for once gossip has spoken the truth in saying that she is very pretty. I only saw her for half a second, but she struck me as both very pretty and very sweet-looking.”

“Not prettier than Charlotte?” asked Charlotte’s mother, half laughing at herself as she put the question.

“Well, yes, I’m afraid poor Gipsy wouldn’t stand comparison with this child. She is really remarkably lovely.”

“Ah, well,” said Mrs Waldron, “Charlotte is above being jealous, or even envious of mere beauty. Still – altogether – yes, I think I agree with you that I am sorry Lady Mildred is going to send the girl to Miss Lloyd’s; for we cannot wish that Charlotte and she should make friends under the circumstances. It would only be putting our child in the way of annoyances, and possibly mortification. And I should be sorry to have to explain things to her or to the boys. I do so long to keep them unworldly and – unsuspicious, unsoured – poor though they may have to be,” and the mother sighed a little.

“Yes,” agreed Mr Waldron earnestly. “I am afraid the worldly spirit is just as insidious when one is poor as when one is rich. And do what we will, Amy, we cannot shelter them from all evil and trouble.”

“I shall be glad if this Miss Meredon, if that is her name, is not in Charlotte’s class,” said Mrs Waldron after a little pause. “I should think it unlikely that she is as far on as Charlotte. Miss Lloyd was telling me the other day how really delighted she and all the teachers are with her.”

“I hope they have not spoilt her,” said Mr Waldron. “She is not the sort of girl to be easily spoilt in that way,” said Charlotte’s mother. “She is too much in earnest – too anxious to learn.”

“I wish Ted had some of her energy,” said the father. “He is really such a dunce – and yet he is practical enough in some ways. We’ll have to ship two or three of those lads off to the backwoods I expect, Amy.”

“I sometimes wish we could all go together,” said Mrs Waldron. “Life is so difficult now and then.”

“You are tired, dear. Things look so differently at different times. For after all, what would not Lady Mildred, poor woman, give for one of our boys – even poor Jerry!”

“Even Jerry!” said Mrs Waldron. “I don’t know one of them I could less afford to part with than him. Arthur is a good boy, a very good boy as an eldest; but Jerry has a sort of instinctive understandingness about him that makes him the greatest possible comfort. Yes, cold and selfish though she may be, I can pity Lady Mildred when I think of her loneliness.”

“And I don’t know that she is cold and selfish,” said Mr Waldrop. “It is more that she has lived in a very narrow world, and it has never occurred to her to look out beyond it. Self-absorption is, after all, not exactly selfishness. But it is getting late, Amy, and Sunday is not much of a day of rest for you, I am sorry to say.”

“I don’t know about that,” she replied, smiling brightly again. “Now that the boys are old enough not to require looking after, and Charlotte is very good with the little ones – no, I don’t think I have any reason to grumble. My hard-working Sundays are becoming things of the past. Sometimes I could almost find it in my heart to regret them! It was very sweet, after all, when they were all tiny mites, with no world outside our own little home, and perfect faith in it and in us – and indeed in everything. I do love very little children.”

“You will be more than half a child yourself, even when you have grey hair and are a grandmother perhaps,” said her husband, laughing.