Silverthorns

“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.

Chapter Four

The New Pupil

“Mamma,” said Charlotte to her mother one day towards the end of the following week, “do you think – I mean would you mind?” She hesitated and grew rather red, and looked down at her dress.

“Would I mind what, dear? Don’t be afraid to say what it is,” said her mother, smiling. Her eyes half unconsciously followed Charlotte’s and rested on her frock. It was one which had undoubtedly “seen better days,” and careful though Charlotte was, nothing could hide the marks of wear.

“Is it about your dress?” Mrs Waldron exclaimed suddenly. “I was going to speak about it. I don’t think you can go on wearing that old cashmere at school any more. You must keep it for home – for the afternoons when you are working in the school-room, and the mornings you don’t go to Miss Lloyd’s; and you must begin your navy-blue serge for regular wear.”

Charlotte’s face cleared.

“Oh, thank you, mamma,” she said. “I am so glad. But – what about a best frock? You know, however careful one is, one can’t look really neat with only one regular dress,” and Charlotte’s face fell again.

“Of course not. Have I ever expected you to manage with only one, so to say? I have sent for patterns already, and Miss Burt is coming about making you a new one. And your velveteen must be refreshed a little for the evenings. By Christmas, if I can possibly afford it, I should like to get you something new for the evenings. There may be concerts, or possibly one or two children’s parties.”

“I don’t care to go if there are,” said Charlotte, “I’m getting too old for them. In proper, regular society, mamma – not a common little town like Wortherham – girls don’t go out when they’re my age, between the two, as it were, do they?”

Mrs Waldron smiled a very little. Charlotte was changing certainly.

“We cannot make hard and fast rules, placed as we are,” she said. “If you don’t care to go to any more children’s parties you need not. But of course Wortherham is your – our – home. I might wish it were in a different place for many reasons, but wishing in such cases is no use, and indeed often does harm. And on the whole it is better to have some friendly intercourse with the people one lives among, even though they may not be very congenial, than to shut oneself out from all sympathies and interests except home ones.” Charlotte did not at once answer, and indeed when she did speak again it was scarcely in reply to her mother.

“I like some of the girls very well. I don’t much care to be intimate with any of them, except perhaps Gueda Knox, and she scarcely counts, she’s so little here now; but they’re nice enough mostly. Only they do gossip a good deal, and make remarks about things that don’t concern them. Mamma,” she went on abruptly, “might I begin wearing my navy-blue to-morrow? I will take great care of it, so that it shall look quite nice on Sundays till I get my new one.”

“To-morrow?” repeated Mrs Waldron, a little surprised. “To-morrow is Friday. Isn’t Monday a better day to begin it?”

Again Charlotte reddened a little.

“Mamma,” she said, “it’s just that I don’t want to begin it on Monday. That girl is coming on Monday for the first time – Lady Mildred’s niece, you know. And you don’t know how I should hate them saying I had got a new dress because of her coming.”

“Would they really be so ill-bred?” exclaimed Mrs Waldron, almost startled.

“Oh, yes. They don’t mean it, they don’t know better. Mamma, I don’t think you can know quite as well as I do how common some of the people here are,” and Charlotte’s face took an expression almost of disgust. “When you see the ladies you call on, they are on their good behaviour, I suppose, and if they did begin to gossip you would somehow manage to discourage it. Oh, mamma, you should be glad you weren’t brought up here.”

Mrs Waldron was half distressed and half amused.

“But we must make the best of it,” she said. “We can’t leave Wortherham, Charlotte.”

“Couldn’t we go and live quite in the country, however quiet and dull it was? I wouldn’t mind.”

“No; for several years at least it would be impossible. There may be opportunities for starting the boys in life here that we must not neglect. And living quite in the country would entail more fatigue for your father.” Charlotte sighed.

“My dear child,” said her mother, “I don’t quite understand you. You have never seemed discontented with your home before. You must not get to take such a gloomy view of things.”

“I don’t mean to be discontented, mamma,” said Charlotte.

“Well, dear, try and get over it. You will have to meet many people in life apparently more favoured and fortunate than you. Perhaps things have in some ways been too smooth for you, Charlotte.”

“Mamma, I am not so selfish as you think. It is not only for myself I’d like some things to be different. Besides, I am old enough now to know that you and papa have a great deal of anxiety. Do you think I only care for myself, mamma?”

“No, dear, I don’t. But don’t you think the best way to help us would be by letting us see that you are happy, and appreciating the advantages we can give you?”

“Yes, mamma,” said Charlotte, submissively enough. But her mother’s eyes followed her somewhat anxiously as she left the room.

The amount of gossip at Miss Lloyd’s school about the expected new pupil was certainly absurd. The young lady’s riches and beauty and connections were discussed and exaggerated as only school-girls can discuss and exaggerate such matters, and the one girl who said nothing, and scarcely seemed to listen to all the chatter, was yet perhaps the most impressed by it.

Charlotte took care to be early in her place that Monday morning. There was half-an-hour’s “preparation” – spent by the conscientious pupils in refreshing their memories by running over the lessons already thoroughly learnt, by the lazy ones in endeavouring to compress into the short space of time the work which should have taken several hours, and by the incorrigibly careless and indifferent in whispered banter or gossip – before the regular work of the day began. And Charlotte, who it need hardly be said belonged to the first category, was looking over a German translation in which she was soon so interested as really to have forgotten the impending arrival, when the class-room door opened, and Miss Lloyd appeared, conducting the new pupil.

“Good morning, young ladies,” she said quietly as usual, glancing round at the two rows of girls who stood up as she came in.

“I wish to introduce you all and Miss Meredon to each other. Miss Meredon is to be a fellow-worker with you for some time.”

This was Miss Lloyd’s customary formula of presentation, and she made it with simplicity and dignity, in no way departing from her usual words or manner. Some of the girls raised their eyebrows with surprise that the advent of this much-talked-of young lady should have called forth no greater demonstration; some, and Mr Waldron’s daughter among them, felt their respect for the quiet, somewhat prim little lady sensibly rise as they listened to her.

“She’s not a snob, any way,” thought Charlotte, and then she half reluctantly allowed her eyes to turn to the girl standing beside the lady-principal. “Papa” had said she was lovely, so had Dr Lewis, but papa’s opinion carried of course far more weight. But, even without it, even without any prepossession or expectation on the subject, Charlotte felt that her very first glance decided it. The girl was lovely – far, far more than “pretty,” like little Isabel Lewis, with her merry eyes and turned-up nose, or “interesting,” like pale-faced Gueda Knox. She was really lovely. Not very fair, but with a brightness rather than brilliance about her which came from one scarcely knew where – it seemed a part of herself, of her sunny hair, of her slightly flushed cheeks, of her smiling and yet appealing eyes, of her whole self. Her very attitude suggested full, springing, and yet gentle, youthful life as she stood there, one foot slightly advanced, her hand half upraised, as if ready and desirous to be friends and friendly with every one; and a slight, very slight shade of disappointment seemed to pass over her face when she saw that nothing followed the little formal speech, that no one among the several girls came forward to greet or welcome her. And as Miss Lloyd turned towards her the hand dropped quietly, and the speaking eyes looked gravely and inquiringly at her conductress.

“What am I to do now?” they seemed to say. “I was ready to shake hands with them all; I do hope I shall understand what to do.”

Miss Lloyd spoke as if in reply to her unexpressed question.

“You can sit here in the mean time, Miss Meredon,” she said, pointing to a side-table. “I shall give you a regular place when it is decided what classes you shall join. In a few minutes the first – that means the head German class – will begin. You can take part in it, so that Herr Märklestatter can judge if you are sufficiently advanced to join in it.”

Then Miss Lloyd’s keen eyes ran along the rows of girls still standing; as they rested for a moment on Charlotte Waldron’s grave, almost solemn face she hesitated, but only for that moment, and then looked past her again.

“Sit down, young ladies,” she said. “But you, Miss Lathom,” she went on, addressing a thin, delicate-looking girl with a gentle expression – poor thing, she was training for a governess, for which, alas! her fragile health ill-suited her, – “bring your German books here, and give Miss Meredon some little idea of what you are doing.”

“Thank you, that will be very kind,” said the new pupil brightly, as if delighted to have an opportunity of expressing some part of her eager good-will; and as Miss Lathom, blushing with the distinction, came shyly from her place, Miss Meredon hastened forward a step or two to meet her, and took some of the pile of books out of her hands. Then the two sat down at the side-table, and the other girls having resumed their places, the class-room subsided into its usual quiet.

Charlotte’s mind was in a curious state of confusion. She was in a sense disappointed, yet at the same time relieved that she had not been picked out to act mentor to the new pupil. She knew that Miss Lloyd’s not having chosen her in no way reflected upon her position in the German class, where she had long ago distanced her companions.

“If it had been French,” she thought to herself, “I might have been a little vexed, for Miss Lathom does speak French better than I do, with having been so much in France; but in German – she is further back than Gueda even. I suppose Miss Lloyd chose Fanny Lathom because she knows she is going to be a governess.”

She was about right; but had she overheard a conversation the day before between Lady Mildred and the lady-principal, she would have felt less philosophical as to the choice not having fallen on herself.

“I have a very nice set of pupils,” Miss Lloyd had said, “none whom Miss Meredon can in the least dislike associating with. Indeed, two or three of them belong to some of our leading families – Miss Knox, the vicar’s daughter, and the two little Fades, whose father is Colonel of the regiment stationed here, and Miss Waldron – she is a most charming girl, and, I may say, my most promising pupil, and nearly of Miss Meredon’s age.”

“Waldron,” Lady Mildred had repeated. “Oh, yes, to be sure, the lawyer’s daughter; I remember the name. Oh, indeed, very respectable families no doubt. But I wish you to understand, Miss Lloyd, that it is not for companionship but for lessons that I send you my niece. I wish her to make no intimacies. She knows my wishes and she will adhere to them, but it is as well you should understand them too.”

“So far as it is in my power, I shall of course be guided by them,” Miss Lloyd had replied somewhat stiffly. “All my pupils come here to learn, not to amuse themselves. But I can only act by Miss Meredon precisely as I do by the others. It would be completely contrary to the spirit of the – the establishment,” – Miss Lloyd’s one weakness was that she could not bring herself to speak of her “school,” – “of my classes, were I to keep any one girl apart from the others, ‘hedging her round’ with some impalpable dignities, as it were,” she went on with a little smile, intended to smooth down her protest.

Lady Mildred was not foolish enough to resent it, but she kept her ground.

“Ah, well,” she said, “I must leave it to my niece’s own sense. She is not deficient in it.”

Still the warning had not been without its effect. Miss Lloyd had no wish to offend the lady of Silverthorns. And a kindly idea of being of possible use to Fanny Lathom had also influenced her.

“If this girl is backward, as she probably is,” she thought, “Fanny may have a chance of giving her private lessons in the holidays, or some arrangement of that kind.”

But Charlotte was in happy ignorance of Lady Mildred’s depreciating remarks, as she sat, to all outward appearance, buried in her German translation, in reality peeping from time to time at the bright head in the corner of the room, round which all the sunshine seemed to linger, listening eagerly for the faintest sound of the pretty voice, or wishing that Miss Meredon would look up for a moment that she might catch the beautiful outlines of her profile.

“She is lovely,” thought Charlotte, “and she is most perfectly dressed, though it looks simple. And – it is true she seems sweet. But very likely that look is all put on, though even if it isn’t what credit is it to her? Who wouldn’t look and feel sweet if they had everything in the world they could wish for? I dare say I could look sweet too in that case. There’s only one comfort, I’m not likely to have much to do with her. If Fanny Lathom’s German is good enough for her I may be pretty sure she won’t be in the top classes. And any one so pretty as she is – she must give a great deal of time to her dress too – is sure not to be very clever or to care much for clever things.”

Ten minutes passed – then a bell rang, and Mademoiselle Bavarde, the French governess, who had been engaged with a very elementary class of small maidens in another room, threw the door open for the six children to pass in, announcing at the same time that Herr Märklestatter had come. Up started the seven girls forming the first class and filed into the Professor’s presence; Miss Meredon was following them, but was detained by a glance from Miss Lloyd.

“I will accompany you and explain to Herr Märklestatter,” she said.

He was a stout, florid man, with a beamingly good-natured face, looking like anything but the very clever, scholarly, frightfully hot-tempered man he really was. He was a capital teacher when he thought his teaching was appreciated, that is to say, where he perceived real anxiety to profit by it. With slowness of apprehension when united to real endeavour he could be patient; but woe betide the really careless or stolidly stupid in his hands! With such his sarcasm was scathing, his fury sometimes almost ungovernable; the veins on his forehead would start out like cords, his blue eyes would flash fire, he would dash from one language to the other of the nine of which he was “past master,” as if seeking everywhere some relief for his uncontrollable irritation, till in the minds of the more intelligent and sympathising of his pupils all other feeling would be merged in actual pity for the man. Scenes of such violence were of course rare, though it was seldom that a lesson passed without some growls as of thunder in the distance. But with it all he was really beloved, and those who understood him would unite to save him, as far as could be, from the trials to his temper of the incorrigibly dense or indifferent students. It was not difficult to do so unsuspected. The honest German was in many ways unsuspicious as a child, and so impressionable, so keenly interested in everything that came in his way, that a word, the suggestion of an inquiry on almost any subject, would make him entirely forget the point on which he had been about to wax irate, and by the time he came back to it he had quite cooled down.

“I do hope, Gueda,” whispered Charlotte to Miss Knox, as they made their way to the German master’s presence, “I do hope that that stupid Edith Greenman has learnt her lessons for once, and that Isabel Lewis will try to pay attention. She is the worst of the two; it is possible to shield poor Edith sometimes.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘poor Edith,’” Gueda replied. “She really does not care to learn. I feel quite as angry with her sometimes as Herr Märklestatter himself.”

“So do I. But it would be such a disgrace to us all to have a scene the first morning, almost the first hour that girl is here.”

“You sheltered Edith last week by an allusion to the comet. You did it splendidly. He was off on the comet’s tail at once, without an idea you had put him there. But I think you can do anything with him, Charlotte, you are such a pet of his, and you deserve to be.”

This was true. Charlotte both was and deserved to be a favourite pupil, and she liked to feel that it was so.

“Well, I hope things will go well to-day,” she said. “I should not like Miss Meredon to think she had got into a bear-garden.”