Silverthorns

“The post-bag has not gone, I believe,” said Lady Mildred. “No doubt you can write. I suppose you are in a fever to report the German master’s compliments – if you think it amiable and considerate to leave your old aunt alone when she has been alone all day, instead of making tea for her and sitting talking with her comfortably. But of course you very intellectual young ladies now-a-days think such small attentions to old people quite beneath you. You will prefer to write in your own room, I suppose – you have a fire. I will send you up some tea if you wish it. May I trouble you to ring the bell?” But as Claudia, without speaking, came forward to do so, Lady Mildred gave a little scream.

“Good gracious, child, you haven’t taken off your waterproof, and you have been standing beside me all this time with that soakingly wet cloak. If you are determined to kill yourself I object to your killing me too.”

“It is scarcely wet, aunt,” said Claudia, gently. “But I am very sorry all the same,” and she left the room as she spoke.

“Why do I constantly vex her?” she said to herself, despairingly. “I must be very stupid and clumsy. I do so want to please her, as papa and mamma said, not only because she is so good to us, but even more, because she is so lonely – poor Aunt Mildred. Of course my letter can wait till to-morrow. Oh, I know what I’ll do – I’ll be very quiet, and I’ll creep into the drawing-room behind Ball with the tea-tray, and Aunt Mildred will not know I’m there.”

And the smiles returned to Claudia’s face as she flew up-stairs and along the gallery to her room. Such a pretty, comfortable room as it was! A bright fire burned in the grate, her writing-table stood temptingly ready. Claudia would dearly have liked to have sat down there and then, to rejoice the home hearts with her good news. For they, as well as she, had been awaiting rather anxiously the results of her measuring her forces against those of her compeers. So much depended on the opinion of qualified and impartial judges as to her capacities; for, as her mother had said laughingly, —

“It may be the old story of our thinking our goose a swan, you know, dear.”

Yes, it would have been delightful to write off at once – a day sooner than they had been expecting to hear. But the very sight of her room confirmed the girl in not yielding to the temptation, for it recalled Lady Mildred’s constant though undemonstrative kindness.

“No doubt it was she who told the servants to keep the fire up for fear I should be cold,” she thought. “Dear me, how very good she is to me. How I wish mamma, and Lalage, and Alix, and all of them, for that matter, could see me here really like a little princess! But oh! how I wish I could send some of all this luxury to them – if I could but send dear mamma a fire in her room to-night! They won’t even be allowing themselves one in the drawing-room yet – they’ll all be sitting together in the study. Monday evening, poor papa’s holiday evening, as he calls it.”

All the time she was thus thinking she was taking off her things as fast as possible. In two minutes she was ready, her hair in order, the rebellious curls in their place, her collar, and all the little details of her dress fit to stand the scrutiny of even Lady Mildred’s sharp eyes; and as she flew down-stairs again, she met, as she had counted upon, the footman carrying in the tea-tray. The drawing-room was quite dark now, as far as light from outside was concerned, and Lady Mildred’s lamp left the corners in shadow. It was easy for Claudia to slip in unperceived, for her aunt was not expecting her, and did not even raise her eyes when the door opened, and the slight clatter that always accompanies cups and saucers announced the arrival of the tea.

“Tell Crossley to come in a few minutes to take Miss Meredon’s tea up-stairs,” said Lady Mildred, not knowing that the footman had already left the room, and that the movements she still heard were made by Claudia, safely ensconced behind the tray, and laughing quietly to herself. In another minute a voice close beside her made the old lady start.

“Aunt Mildred,” it said, “here is your tea.”

“Claudia!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were up-stairs in your room.”

“Selfishly writing my letter home! Oh, aunt! how could you think I would be so horrid! My letter will do very well to-morrow. I did not think it was so near tea-time when I thoughtlessly spoke of it. Do you think I don’t enjoy making tea for you? – almost the only thing I can do for you,” said the girl with a kind of affectionate reproach.

Lady Mildred was silent for a few moments. Then she said again, with a tone in her voice which was not often heard, —

“Claudia, you have the best of gifts – a sweet and sunny nature. Try to keep it, my dear.”

And Claudia felt rewarded.

She sat up in her own room that night for half-an-hour to write the home letter.

“Mamma would forgive my doing so for once,” she said to herself, “for I may not have time to-morrow. If I am really to do well at school I must work hard, and it will not be easy to do so, and yet to please Aunt Mildred. But I don’t mind how difficult it is – it will be worth it all to be able to help them at home without being separated. But oh, mamma, mamma! it is very hard to be away from you all!”

And Claudia leant her head on the table and burst into tears.

Chapter Six

Claudia’s Home

The Rectory at Britton-Garnett was one of those picturesque, tempting-looking, old cottage-like houses which, seen in summer by a passer-by, embowered in greenery and roses, remain in the memory as a sort of little earthly paradise. And its inhabitants, who loved it well in spite of its imperfections, would have accepted the verdict without much protest.

“It is a sweet little place,” Mrs Meredon would say, “and for rich people it might really be made almost perfect. But with these old houses, you see, there seems always something that wants doing or repairing. The roof is in a very bad state, and we are sometimes very much afraid that there is dry-rot in the old wainscoting.”

But the roof had to be patched up, and the incipient dry-rot had to be left to itself. Mr Meredon was far too poor to spend a shilling or even a sixpence that he could possibly help; and as the house was his own private property, – for what had been the Rectory was a very small house in the village, quite out of the question as the abode of a large family, – there was no one to appeal to for necessary repairs, as is usually the case. The Rectory proper was, in point of fact, large enough for the living, which was a very small one. Long ago now, when the Meredons first came there, shortly after their marriage, it had been with the idea that Britton-Garnett was but the stepping-stone to better things. But years had gone on without the better things coming, and now for some considerable time past the Rector had left off hoping that they ever would, or that he could be able conscientiously to accept them should they do so. For a terrible misfortune had come over him, literally to darken his life. He had grown almost totally blind.

It had been softened to some extent by a very slow and gradual approach. The sufferer himself, and his wife and elder children, had had time to prepare for it, and to make their account with it. There was even now a good hope that, with great care and prudence, the glimmering of sight that remained to him might be preserved; that the disease had, so to speak, done its worst. But adieu to all prospects of a more active career, of the wide-spread usefulness and distinction Mr Meredon had sometimes dreamt of, of “the better things,” in the practical sense even, that he had hoped for, when he and his light-hearted and talented but portionless young bride had, like so many thousands of others in fact and fiction, “so very imprudently married.” It was even harder in some ways than if the poor man had become completely blind, for then there would have been nothing more to fear, no use in precautions or care.

“Sometimes I could wish it had been so,” he once confessed to his wife. “I don’t know but that it would have been easier for you all.”

“Easier for you, perhaps, dear Basil,” said his wife. “But for us – oh no! Think what it would be for you not to know the children’s faces as they grow up, not to – ”

“The loss would be mine in all that,” interrupted Mr Meredon.

“But, papa dear, it would be much more trouble for us if we had always to trot about with you, if you couldn’t go anywhere alone. We should have to get a little dog for you – or else I should have to leave off my lessons and my music and everything to go everywhere with you. No, you are a very selfish old man to wish to be quite blind,” said Claudia gaily. “I like you much better as you are.”

“I should not see how thin your mother’s face is growing. I can see that. The grey hairs – if they are coming – I can’t see as it is.”

“Nor can I – for the very good reason that there are none to see,” Claudia replied.

There were several children – all younger, considerably younger than Claudia, and the two next her were girls. So for the moment the family cares were not so heavy as in the future they would assuredly be, when the little boys’ schooling would have to be thought of, and college, or starting them in the world, beyond that again. Mr Meredon was the younger son of a large family. All that he could hope for had been done for him, and the seniors of his family were not rich men for their position.

“There is only Aunt Mildred,” he said more than once to his wife: “she is alone now, and she used to be fond of me.”

“Till you married,” said Mrs Meredon. “And – it is not exactly as if her money was Meredon money. She only has it for life, has she not?”

“Yes, only for her life; and she has, by her husband’s instructions, to keep up the place in such perfect order, – besides its being temporarily rather heavily burdened, – that she is really not very rich in ready money. General Osbert, the next owner, will be better off than she. Still, if she could see us, she might do something for the children. Anything would be something – even helping Claudia’s education.”

“That would be almost the best help she could give us,” said Mrs Meredon, eagerly. “Claudia is, I feel almost certain, unusually clever, and – you must not be vexed, Basil – an idea has struck me, her and me I should say, which would make things easier in the future. If Claudia could have the chance of some really first-rate teaching for a couple of years or so, she would then be eighteen, and she might turn her knowledge to account.”

“You mean by becoming a governess?” said Mr Meredon. “I doubt if Aunt Mildred would give any help towards such an end as that.”

“No, I don’t mean a governess in the ordinary way. But in the first place she could teach Lalage and Alix, and the boys too for some time to come. And besides that, I quite think she could have other pupils. Mrs Carteret has been speaking to me about her three girls – they are quite little still, you know, but in a year or two she will have to arrange something. Of course they are not the sort of people to send their girls to school; but, on the other hand, she is very averse to having a resident governess, as their house is already so full. She almost said to me that they would gladly pay as much as to a resident governess if they could meet with any lady in the neighbourhood who could undertake to give the children daily lessons. And Mr Fade, I rather fancy he would be delighted to join in any plan of the kind. He wants companionship for Sydney, and yet he would certainly never send her to school.”

“So we should have a select establishment for young ladies here,” said Mr Meredon, half amused, half incredulous. “I doubt if the Meredon prejudices would not be even more shocked by that than if Claudia became a governess.”

“I don’t think so; besides, we can’t afford to consider that. Our circumstances are very peculiar. We must do what we can for ourselves. And Claudia is a very exceptional girl.”

“Yes, I allow that. But would such a scheme not entail too much fatigue and work for her? She will be very young even at eighteen. And no teacher can teach everything.”

“No; but if it were arranged, Claudia and I are sure that both the Carterets and Mr Fade would join to have one or two masters once a week or so from Curwen. Claudia could superintend the preparation for them, and I, of course, would give what help I could if it were in this house. But most likely Mrs Carteret would wish the lessons to be there. There would be an advantage in that, for it would leave me more time for reading and writing with you.”

Mr Meredon was silent for a little.

“That would be a very great comfort,” he said at last, “and possibly even more. I can’t bear to take up your time just now, when you have all the teaching to do; but if you were freer I might perhaps go on with some of the work I had in hand when my eyes first got so bad. I could dictate to you,” and Mr Meredon looked up eagerly.

But the brighter expression soon faded.

“I am afraid,” he said, “we are reckoning on our chickens not only before they are hatched, but before we have got any eggs! In the first place, Mrs Carteret may not think Claudia fit for it. No man is a prophet in his own country – and you see they have known her since she was a baby.”

Mrs Meredon smiled.

“I will ask Mrs Carteret about it,” she said.

“And then the two years’ schooling for her. Where is that to come from?” he asked.

“Ah! that is the question. Well, Basil, I love our independence as much as you do, but with this prospect of steady and remunerative employment for her, I think we should swallow our false pride, – it surely would be false pride in such a case, – and ask Lady Mildred to help us. It would not be asking much, or burdening her for long.”