Silverthorns

Chapter One

Charlotte and Jerry

The school-room at Number 19, Norfolk Terrace, was not, it must be confessed, a particularly attractive room. To begin with, it looked out upon the little garden at the back of the house, and this same little garden was not much to look out upon. The modest, old-fashioned name of “green” would have suited it better. Some of the gardens of the neighbouring houses were really pretty and well cared for, but Mrs Waldron had long ago decided that to attempt making of “our garden” anything but a playground while the boys were still “such mere boys,” so irrepressibly full of high spirits and mischief, would be but to add another and unnecessary care to the long list of household matters which she found already quite as much as she could manage. So the garden remained the green, and the school-room the plain, rather untidy-looking room it had always been. It was not really untidy – a radical foundation of order and arrangement was insisted upon. But any room which is the ordinary resort of four boys and a girl, not to speak of occasional inroads from two “nursery children,” cannot be expected to look as if no one lived in it.

“We are invisibly tidy,” the Waldron boys used to say with a certain pride. “We do know where our things are, and the cupboards and drawers are really not messy at all. But of course we can’t rig boats, and oil skates, and paint, and carve, and all that, without the room showing it. Not to speak of Ted’s stamp-album, and Arthur’s autographs, and all, our lessons at night.”

“Yes, that’s all very fine,” Charlotte would reply. “But if it wasn’t for Jerry and me I wonder how long you would all know where your things were, and how long the cupboards and drawers would pass mamma’s inspections!”

Whereupon would ensue a series of “Of course, dear Charlotte” cries, and “You are awfully good, we know” cries – for the three elder boys knew that it would be a very bad look-out indeed for them if their sister were to relax in her constant efforts in their behalf.

“And really if it weren’t for Jerry, I don’t think I could keep on tidying for them so,” Charlotte would sometimes say. Jerry was the youngest of the four big boys, in the middle of whom came Charlotte. He was lame, poor fellow, and as a small child he had been very delicate. That happily to a great extent was past now, but the gentleness and quickness of perception which often accompany delicate health had remained. Jerry was as good as a sister any day, Charlotte used to declare, and yet not the least “soft” either; considering his lameness it was wonderful what Jerry could do.

There were two tiny sisters up in the nursery, babies that hardly counted as yet in the restless, busy group of older ones. But they added their share, no doubt, to all that had to be done and thought of, though Charlotte often looked forward with prospective envy to the pleasant life that would be theirs when they came to her age.

“You are pretty sure to be out in the world by then, Jerry,” she said to him one day, “and I, if I am not married, shall be quite an old maid – a sort of second mother to Amy and Marion. Think how nice and quiet and regular the house will be! I do think a large family is dreadful.”

“But mamma says we don’t know how dull it is to be an only child like she was,” Jerry objected.

“As she was – do talk grammar,” said Charlotte. “I don’t care – I should have liked to be an only child – or perhaps to have had just one brother like you, Jerry. Just think what a nice life we would have had! But I mustn’t talk any more. I must copy out my literature notes. When I have finished them, Jerry, I will tell you something if you remind me.”

The two had the school-room to themselves for once, which was the more remarkable as it was Saturday afternoon, and not a summer Saturday afternoon, nor yet a mid-winter frosty day, when Arthur, Ted, and Noble would have been safe to be off skating. It was a late September afternoon, dull and gloomy and already chilly. The rain had held off, however, fortunately, for the elder boys had for some days been planning a long country walk, to finish up with tea at the house of a schoolfellow, who lived a couple of miles out of the town.

“What a dreary day it is!” Charlotte began again, looking up from her notes. “I wish we might have a fire,” and she shivered a little.

“I dare say we might,” said Jerry, starting up. “Shall I ask mamma?”

“No,” Charlotte decided. “We shall be in the drawing-room all the evening. I’ve nearly done. I know mamma is glad not to give the servants anything extra to do on Saturdays. And they haven’t got into the way of regular winter fires yet. I wonder if it isn’t any brighter out in the country to-day than it is here.”

“Hardly, I should say,” Jerry answered, as he glanced out of the window. “Still it would be nicer than here. I wish we had a pony-carriage, Charlotte – think what jolly drives we might have. Those woods out Gretham way where the boys have gone must be nice even to-day,” and Jerry gave a little sigh. He could not walk far, and Wortherham, though not a very large town, was partly a manufacturing one, and large enough therefore to be somewhat grim and smoky, and to make one long for the freshness and clearness of country air.

“I wish you would not say that,” said Charlotte, giving herself a little shake. “It makes me feel as if everything was all wrong for you not to have all you want, Jerry.”

“Nobody has, I suppose,” said the boy.

“I don’t know about that,” Charlotte replied. “But that reminds me. Jerry, you know that beautiful place out beyond Gretham. The place papa drove us out to once – he had some business there, I think.”

“Silverthorns?” said Jerry. “Oh yes, I remember it. It is the prettiest place in the world, I think.”

“So do I,” agreed Charlotte with conviction. “Well, do you know, Jerry, the lady it belongs to – Lady Mildred something – I forget her last name – came the other day to see Miss Lloyd. I didn’t see her, but the French teacher told us. She came to settle about a girl coming to Miss Lloyd’s for classes, the way we all do, only I don’t know if she’s to come every day. Miss Lloyd was awfully pleased, I believe, for Lady Mildred said she had heard the teaching so highly spoken of, and that she wouldn’t have sent the girl to a regular school. You know Miss Lloyd prides herself on hers not being a school, and it is true, everybody agrees, that we are thoroughly well taught.”

“And who is the girl?” asked Jerry.

“I don’t know her name, but she’s Lady Mildred’s niece. And somebody – oh yes, it was the Lewises, the doctor’s daughters – said that Lady Mildred has adopted her, so that she is a tremendous heiress. And besides this she’s exceedingly pretty and charming. Dr Lewis saw her one day that he went to see Lady Mildred, and he quite raved about her, the girls said. Just fancy, Jerry, young – just about sixteen, and so pretty and so rich and so grand– can you believe she hasn’t got all she wants!”

“I don’t know,” Jerry replied philosophically. “You’d better ask her. Perhaps she’s an orphan,” he added.

“Ah, well, perhaps she is. That would be sad, of course; but if her father and mother died, as very likely they did, when she was quite little – a baby perhaps, and she can’t remember them, that would be different. And very likely Lady Mildred is just like a mother to her. Jerry, I wish she weren’t coming to our classes. I wouldn’t say so to any one else, but I have a presentiment I shall hate her.”

“Charlotte!” Jerry ejaculated, surprised and even a little shocked.

But Charlotte’s face half-belied her words. She was already laughing a little, though she reddened too, slightly, as she felt her brother’s soft blue eyes fixed upon her.

“I shouldn’t say it, I know,” she said, shaking back the thick dark hair that she still wore loose on her shoulders. “But you might understand. We are all very comfortable at Miss Lloyd’s, and I don’t want any one to come and spoil it – an outsider, as it were, for the rest of us have been there so long, and she is too old to be in any but the highest class.”

“Unless she’s very stupid for her age,” suggested Jerry. “Very likely she is – perhaps that’s the thing she hasn’t got, Charlotte. Cleverness, I mean. And I’m sure,” he went on with brotherly frankness, “you wouldn’t give up being clever for the sake of being pretty – now, would you?”

Charlotte laughed.

“Surely I’m not so ugly as all that,” she said. “Do you really think I am, Jerry?”

She lifted her face and looked across the table at the boy. Ugly she certainly was not, but though her features were good, her complexion was some degrees browner than “by rights” it should have been to match the very blue eyes common to all the Waldrons. And her hair was short as well as thick and curly, and in consequence rather unmanageable. But it was a bright and kindly and pleasant face, and Jerry felt vaguely as he looked at it that there were things, even in faces, better than strict beauty.

“I don’t know,” he said bluntly. “Your face is you, and so I like it. I don’t want it changed, except that in a bit, I suppose, you’ll have to do your hair up somehow.”

“Yes, I suppose I shall,” replied Charlotte, glancing sideways and somewhat ruefully at the dark brown curly locks in question; “but how I shall do it, I’m sure I can’t tell. I wonder if I should begin to try soon. I think I’ll ask mamma. I wonder how she did hers when she was my age – but hers could never have been difficult to do. It’s so beautifully soft and never gets in a mess.”

“No – I couldn’t fancy anything to do with mamma in a mess,” said Jerry. “You’ll never be anything like as pretty as her, Charlotte.”

“You don’t suppose I ever thought I should, you stupid boy,” retorted his sister indignantly. “I notice that people generally like to make out that children never are as pretty or as good or as something as their parents, and very often I dare say it’s rubbish. But in our case any one with half an eye can see how lovely mamma is. I doubt if even Marion will be anything to compare with her, though she is a very pretty little girl.”

Jerry grunted approval and agreement. He had got to a very delicate point in his occupation, which was that of taking out some stamps which Ted in a hurry had gummed into a wrong place in his album. All such difficult operations, settings right of other people’s puttings wrong, were sure to fall to Jerry – his thin dexterous fingers seemed to have a genius for work that baffled every one else. Charlotte went on with her writing, and for a few minutes there was silence in the room.

Suddenly she looked up again.

“Jerry,” she said, “I’m so glad you think that that girl is sure to be stupid.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jerry, whose mouth was again screwed up in absorbed anxiety. “There now,” he exclaimed, “I’ve got it off without the least scrap tearing. I’m sure Ted should be very much obliged to me. What were you saying, Charlotte? I never said I was sure – only that perhaps she would be.”

“No, no, you said more than that. If you didn’t say you were sure, you said ‘very likely.’ That’s more than ‘perhaps,’” persisted Charlotte. “Well, I hope she is, for then I may be able to like her. If not – but I really think she must be, if not stupid, at least not clever. It wouldn’t be fair for her to have everything,” she went on, reverting to the old grievance. “Nobody has, people say.”

But Jerry’s sympathy on the subject was rather exhausted.

“I wish you’d leave off thinking about her,” he said. “You’ll work yourself up to fancying all sorts of things, and making yourself dislike a person that perhaps you’ll never see. Possibly she won’t come after all.”

Charlotte sighed.

“I dare say you’re right,” she said. “It’s only that I tell you everything, you see, Jerry.”

“Hadn’t you better tell mamma about it?” he said. “She generally finds out what gives one wrong sorts of feelings. She’s put me to rights lots of times when I’d got horrid about – ” and he hesitated.

“About what, Jerry dear?”

In his turn Jerry’s face flushed.

“About being lame,” he said. “You know we did hope for a good while that it was going to get almost quite well, so that it would hardly be noticed. But there’s no chance of that now. I shall always be pretty much the same. And it did make me feel as if everything was wrong for a while.”

“Dear Jerry,” said Charlotte. “And you are so good about it. Nobody would know you minded.”

“It’s a good deal with getting into the way of not thinking about it,” said Jerry. “It’s no use trying not to think of a thing unless you put something else into your head to fill up the place. The trying not is thinking of it, you see. But mamma taught me what a good plan it was, when I found I was going on thinking of a trouble that had to be, to look out for some trouble that didn’t need to be, and to try to put it right. And you wouldn’t believe, unless you get in the way of it, what lots of those there are that you can at least help to put right.”

Charlotte looked a good deal impressed. It was not often that Jerry said so much.

“Yes,” she agreed, “I can fancy it would be a very good plan. But, you see, Jerry, I’ve very seldom had anything that it was better not to think of. Perhaps it is that my head has been so full of lessons, and the lots of things that are nice to think of.”

“Well,” said Jerry, “you can go on keeping your head full of sensible things instead of fussing about a stupid girl you’ve never seen!”

His calm philosophy made Charlotte laugh.

“I’m sure I don’t want to think about her,” she said, as she jumped up and began to put away her books. “What are you going to do now, Jerry? I’m sure you’ve been long enough over Arthur’s stamps. When one has a holiday, I think one should have some of it at least to oneself.”

“Will you play with me, then?” said Jerry. “I really like that better than anything, only it isn’t much fun for you.”

For Jerry was doing his best to learn the violin. He really loved music, and had already mastered the first difficulties, though his teaching had been but some irregular lessons from a friend who had also lent him his fiddle. And Charlotte, who played the piano well, though with less natural taste for music than her brother, could not please him better than by accompanying him. It called for some patience, no doubt, but harder things would have seemed easy to the girl for Jerry’s sake. So the two spent the rest of the dull autumn afternoon happily and contentedly, though the old school-room piano had long ago seen its best days, and the sounds that Jerry extracted from his violin were not always those of the most harmonious sweetness.

At six o’clock Charlotte started up.

“There is the first dinner-bell,” she said. “We must get dressed at once, Jerry. There is to be no school-room tea to-night, for mamma said it wasn’t worth while, as Noble was out. You and I are to dine with her and papa, and dinner is to be half-an-hour earlier than usual.”

“Where are the boys?” asked Mr Waldron, putting his head in at the door at that moment.

“All out, papa, except me,” Jerry replied.

“And we two are to dine with you and mamma instead of Arthur and Ted,” added Charlotte.

“All right, my dear, but don’t keep us waiting. I have to go out immediately after dinner,” her father replied.

“How tiresome it must be for papa to be sent for like that!” said Charlotte. “I think a lawyer – at least a lawyer in a little town like Wortherham – is almost as badly off as a doctor. I suppose some old gentleman fancies he’s going to die, and has sent for papa to make his will.”

“Very likely nothing half so important,” Jerry replied.

“I wish Arthur or Ted were back,” said Mr Waldron at dinner. “One of them might have driven me out to – ” but before he said more, Jerry interrupted him.

“Papa, mightn’t I?” he exclaimed. “I really can drive – at least I am sure I could drive old Dolly.”

His father looked at him doubtfully.

“It isn’t really the driving so much as the waiting for me. I don’t like to take Sam out on Saturday evening – he makes it an excuse for not getting things tidied up. But I hardly like to take you alone, Gervais, my boy; you see if any little thing went wrong while you were waiting for me – it isn’t as if you could jump down quickly.”

Jerry’s face sobered down, but he said nothing.

“Papa,” exclaimed Charlotte eagerly, “I’ll tell you what. Take me too – we can all three pack in the dog-cart – you’ll see, and then if any one had to jump down, I could. It would be such fun, and Jerry hasn’t been out all the afternoon. Mamma, do say we may.”

Mamma smiled. Her impulse was always on the side of “you may” – perhaps almost too much so.

“Are you going far, Edward?” she asked her husband.

“Out beyond Gretham – as far as – Silverthorns,” he replied, with the slightest possible, not so much hesitation as slackening of speech before the last word. “I have no objection – none whatever,” he went on, speaking quickly, “to the children coming with me, if you think it can’t hurt them.”

“I should so like to go. I haven’t been so far as Silverthorns for – ages,” said Charlotte eagerly still.

Her father glanced at her with a half-question in his eyes.

“It is not a particularly pretty road,” he said; “besides it is dark already; one road is as pleasant as another in the dark.”

“The house at Silverthorns must look lovely in the moonlight,” Charlotte replied.

“And there will be a moon to-night,” added Jerry.

“If it isn’t overclouded,” said Mr Waldron. “Ah, well, if mamma says you may, it will be all right, I suppose.”

“You will not be kept there long?” asked Mrs Waldron.

“A quarter of an hour at most,” her husband replied. “It is nothing of any importance – merely some little difficulty with one of the leases, which Lady Mildred Osbert wants to speak to me about. Had it been anything of consequence she would have telegraphed for the London men – I have never anything to do with the important business there, you know,” he added, with an almost imperceptible shade of bitterness.

“Then I think it very inconsiderate to expect you to go all that way late on a Saturday evening,” said Mrs Waldron. The colour rose in her cheeks as she spoke, and Jerry thought to himself how pretty mamma looked when she was a very little angry.

“That was my own doing. Lady Mildred gave me my choice of to-day or Monday morning. She is going away on Monday afternoon for a few days. I preferred this evening. Monday will be a very busy day.”

He rose from the table as he spoke.

“Get ready, children,” he said. “I give you ten minutes, not more. And wrap up well.”

Chapter Two

In the Moonlight

It was almost quite dark when Mr Waldron’s dog-cart with its three occupants started on the four miles’ drive.

“I don’t know about your moon, Jerry,” said his father. “I’m afraid we shall not see much of her to-night. It is still so cloudy.”

“But they seem to be little flying clouds, not heavy rain bags,” said Charlotte. “And there is the moon, papa.”

“It’s almost full,” added Jerry. “I believe it’s going to be a beautiful night. Look, Charlotte, isn’t it interesting to watch her fighting her way through the clouds?”

She had fought to some purpose by the time they reached Gretham, the village on the other side of which lay Lady Mildred Osbert’s house. For when they entered the Silverthorns avenue the cold radiance, broken though not dimmed by the feathery shadows of the restless, rushing cloudlets, lighted up the trees on each side and the wide gravel drive before them, giving to all the strange unreal look which the most commonplace objects seem to assume in bright moonlight. Mr Waldron drove slowly, and at a turn which brought them somewhat suddenly into full view of the house itself he all but pulled up.

“There, children,” he said, “you have your wish. There is Silverthorns in full moonlight.”

His voice softened a little as he spoke, and something in it made an unexpected suggestion to Gervais.

“Papa,” he said, “you speak as if you were thinking of long ago. Did you ever see Silverthorns like that before – in the moonlight, just as it is now?”

“Yes,” his father replied. “I had almost forgotten it, I think. I remember standing here one night, when I was quite a little fellow, with my grandmother, and seeing it just like this.”

“How curious!” said Charlotte. “But I don’t wonder it has come back to your mind now. It is so beautiful.”

She gave a deep breath of satisfaction. She was right. The old house looked wonderfully fine. It was of the quaintly irregular architecture of some so-called “Elizabethan” mansions, though in point of fact some part of it was nearly two hundred years older than the rest, and the later additions were, to say the least, incongruous. But the last owner’s predecessor had been a man of taste and intelligence, and by some apparently small alterations – a window here, a porchway there – had done much to weld the different parts into a very pleasing if not strictly correct whole. Ivy, too, grew thickly over one end of the building, veiling with its kindly green shadow what had once been an unsightly disproportion of wall; the windows were all latticed, and a broad terrace walk ran round three sides of the house, while here and there on the smooth, close-cut lawn just below stood out, dark and stiff, grotesquely-cut shrubs which had each had its own special designation handed down from one generation to another.

“See,” said Mr Waldron, pointing to these with his whip, as he walked old Dolly slowly on towards the front entrance, “there are the peacocks, one on each side, and the man-of-war at the corner, and – I forget what they are all supposed to represent. They look rather eerie, don’t they? – so black and fierce; the moonlight exaggerates their queer shapes. But it is lovely up there on the windows – each little pane is like a separate jewel.”

“Yes,” repeated the children, “it is lovely.”

“We always say,” Charlotte added, “that Silverthorns is like an old fairy castle. It must be one of the most beautiful houses in the world! – don’t you think so yourself, papa? What would it be to live in a house like that! Just fancy it, Jerry!”

But by this time Mr Waldron had got down, and throwing the reins to Jerry, was ringing. He was not kept long waiting; the door flew open, and a flood of light – lamplight and firelight mingled, for there was a vision of blazing logs on an open hearth in the hall! – poured out, looking cheery enough certainly, though coarse and matter-of-fact in comparison with the delicate radiance outside.

“Her ladyship? Yes, sir – Mr Waldron, I believe? Yes, her ladyship is expecting you,” said a very irreproachable sort of person in black, who came forward as soon as the footman had opened. He was busy washing his hands with invisible soap while he spoke, and as he caught sight of the dog-cart and its occupants, he made some further observation which Charlotte and Jerry did not distinctly catch. But their father’s clear decided tones rang back sharply in answer:

“No, no – no need to put up. My son will wait for me. It is all right.”

Apparently, however, the butler, or major-domo, or whoever he was, had some twinges on the score of hospitality, for the door, already closed, was re-opened, and the footman looked out.

“Mr Bright says, sir,” he said, addressing Jerry in the first place, then stammering somewhat as he caught sight of Charlotte; “I beg your pardon, Miss, he says as I’m to leave the door a little open, and if you find it too cold, I’ll be here in the ’all, and ’appy to call some one, sir, to ’old the ’orse.”

“Thank you, it’s all right,” said Jerry, well knowing that neither he nor Charlotte would have ventured to enter without their father’s permission and protection, even if the proverbial cats and dogs had suddenly begun to fall from the sky.

“Who’s Mr Bright, do you think, Jerry?” Charlotte whispered.

“That fellow in black – the butler, I suppose,” Jerry replied.

“Don’t you wonder papa ventured to speak so sharply to him?” Charlotte went on. “Oh, Jerry! it must be awfully grand in there. I do wish they had left the door a little more ajar. We might perhaps have caught sight of her– she might have happened to be crossing the hall, the sort of way one always reads of in storybooks, you know.”