Silverthorns

“Then you don’t approve of —

”‘Hold up your head, turn out your toes,
Speak when you’re spoken to, mend your clo’es,’

“Aunt Mildred?” she said.

“Yes, I do,” said the old lady, testily. “There’s a medium in all things. I detest impertinent little chatterboxes of children. But you’re not a child now, Claudia, and you have plenty of sense and knowledge in your head; you are quite able to talk very intelligently and agreeably if you choose. I only hope you are not going to turn into a book-worm. Are you working too hard?”

“No, aunt, I don’t think so,” said Claudia. “And you know how I enjoy my lessons. And the teaching at Miss Lloyd’s is really very interesting.”

But she gave a very little sigh as she spoke.

“Then what’s the matter with you? Are you ill? I hope you’re not home-sick. Or do any of those girls at Miss Lloyd’s annoy you in any way? You can’t deny that you’re not in your usual spirits.”

“No,” Claudia allowed, “I don’t feel quite as merry as usual; but I’m sure I’m not ill. And I’m not home-sick: if I were it would be too silly, when I know that what you are doing for me now is to make it possible for me to be a real help to them all at home. Perhaps, however, I am just a very little what people call home-sick. It isn’t the girls at school – I have very little to do with them.”

“All the better,” said Lady Mildred. “They cannot be much worth knowing.”

“Perhaps most of them are rather commonplace,” Claudia allowed. “There is only one – the one I told you of, Charlotte Waldron – who interests me at all particularly. But I don’t think I interest her, so though we do all the same lessons we scarcely ever speak to each other,” and again Claudia sighed a little.

“You are a goose,” said her aunt. “I believe you would like to make friends with the girl, and have her adoring you and gushing over you.”

Claudia could not help laughing a little. The idea of cold, proud Charlotte “gushing” over any one, over herself especially, struck her as curiously incongruous.

“She’s not at all that sort of girl, Aunt Mildred,” she said.

“So much the better,” repeated Lady Mildred again. “And whatever she is or is not,” she went on, “remember, Claudia, I gave you fair warning that I could have no school-girl friendships.”

“Of course, aunt, I know that quite well. Don’t think I am dreaming of such things. I really and truly don’t quite know why I don’t feel as bright as usual.”

It was as she said. She did not understand herself. Hitherto, though her life had been in some respects a hard and even anxious one, – for she had shared her parents’ cares and struggles, and the mode of living at the rectory had been of almost Spartan simplicity, – there had been no complications. Duties had been clear and straightforward, to Claudia’s genial and loving nature they had gone hand in hand with her greatest delight – that of serving and helping those about her. But now it was different: she felt herself misunderstood and disliked; she felt she was almost giving reason for this, and yet what could she do? The little kindnesses and overtures of good will which her mother had assured her she could find opportunity for without violating her aunt’s wishes had been rejected almost with scorn. She was beginning even faintly to suspect that her earnest and conscientious school-work, or rather the success with which it was crowned, was rousing against her feelings which she could not endure to suspect the existence of in the hearts of others. Yet here again what could she do? It must be right to do her best, to profit to the utmost by the opportunities her aunt’s goodness was giving her, even if it made her companions – though, to tell the truth, the word was in Claudia’s mind represented by Charlotte Waldron alone – dislike and almost hate her. Yet it was so painful, so new; and to have to face these problems for the first time, when for the first time she was alone and with no one to reprove or advise her, did seem hard. For it would have been impossible to express all her difficulties clearly in a letter, even had she not felt that it would be disloyal to her aunt, and cruel to the anxious hearts at home, to attempt to do so.

“No,” she repeated, as Lady Mildred did not at once speak, “I don’t quite know why I don’t feel as usual. Perhaps I am working a very little too hard. If it were summer I am sure I should be as merry as ever – it must be too lovely here in summer, Aunt Mildred.”

“But you get plenty of fresh air – it is a good drive into Wortherham and back every day?”

“Oh, yes, and I do so enjoy it. You don’t know how nice it is. I am so glad papa managed to teach me to drive quite as a child, though I never had anything like Kelpie to drive before. She is such a darling, Aunt Mildred.”

Claudia’s face lightened up with the thought of her pony’s perfections. Lady Mildred looked at her: she saw that when the momentary glow faded the girl seemed again pale and tired-looking.

“My dear, do you sleep well?” she said suddenly.

“Not very well, perhaps,” Claudia admitted.

“You’re not nervous – you don’t mind being alone?”

“Oh, no,” said Claudia; “I have always had a room alone since I was quite a little girl.”

“Yes; but at home, in a smaller house, where you all seem nearer together, it is different. You are quite sure you are not nervous here? Don’t be afraid of saying so if you are. No one has been telling you nonsense about this house being haunted, or anything of that kind?”

A light broke over Claudia’s face, which had been growing rather bewildered-looking.

“It is very kind of you to have thought of it, Aunt Mildred,” she said. “But indeed I am not the least nervous in that way. I have not slept well partly perhaps because I have been thinking so much about my lessons. I do so want to show them at home that I am doing well, and the examinations and all that will be coming on soon.”

“Don’t overdo it,” said Lady Mildred. “Your father and mother – and I, for that matter, if you care about me in that way – will be perfectly satisfied that you have done your best, without any prizes or things of that kind.”

“There is only one prize given at Christmas,” said Claudia, “and that is a German one that the master gives himself. I do dreadfully want to get it. Mamma is so anxious about my German.”

“Well, don’t overwork yourself, my dear. It would be very unlucky if you were to fall ill here – you that have always been so strong. It would reflect badly on me, or on Silverthorns, if you lost your rosy cheeks here. And to some of those girls, doubtless, prizes must seem matters of life or death – many of them probably are training for governesses.”

“Some perhaps may be,” said Claudia; “but I think many of them, particularly some of the least refined, are very rich. And I don’t think any of them can wish for this prize more than I do. Think what it would be to send it home! But, Aunt Mildred,” she went on in a different tone, “as you see I’m not nervous, I wish you would tell me more about the ghost.”

“I know very little about, the story, my dear,” Lady Mildred replied. “Mr Osbert, my husband, disliked its being spoken about, and I did not care to hear. There was some nonsense about the ghost being heard or seen at the time of the old squire’s death, which annoyed him. I fancy it was set about by some cousins who had no right to the place, but tried to claim something, and they wanted to make out that the ghost was on their side.”

“How very absurd, and how wrong!” said Claudia. “Yes; I know very little about it however. The ghost is supposed to be the spirit of a very ruffianly old Osbert, who cannot rest in peace.”

“He haunts the tower, doesn’t he?” said Claudia. “Old Peebles, the gardener, told me that, one day when I was asking him if there were owls’ nests up there. He said he ‘durstn’t take upon himself to disturb them, nor anything else about the tower, and he couldn’t say.’”

“Ah, yes, you see that explains it all. No doubt there have been owls there for generations, and if no one ever disturbs them they have it all their own way. We have never used those rooms much – the rooms in the lower part of the tower, I mean.”

“But they are dear old rooms. The one the servants call the chintz room might be made delightful. I should not be the least afraid to sleep there,” said Claudia.

“Well, if ever the house is more full of guests than it is likely to be in my time,” said Lady Mildred, who was particularly amiable to Claudia that evening, “you shall move there and try how you like it. We have often used it as a sort of bachelor’s room or odd spare room – it is easily put in order. And, by the bye, you would have no reason to fear the ghost, Claudia. He only appears to, or is heard by – I don’t know which – members of the Osbert family. They must have Osbert blood in them.”

“How disappointing!” Claudia replied. “I shouldn’t care so much for sleeping in the tower if that’s the case.”

“Well, go and sleep in your own bed now, and let me see you looking better to-morrow. It is getting late,” said her aunt.

Claudia kissed her and said good night, and went off. She felt brightened by the talk with Lady Mildred. It was not often that the old lady was so genial and sympathising.

“It was really very kind of her to think of my being perhaps frightened at night,” she said to herself. “Very few grown-up people think of such things. If it had been poor Alix now – I don’t believe Alix will ever be able to sleep in a room alone.”

She was up-stairs by this time on the large first floor landing, which at one side was separated from the oldest part of the house by a door and short passage. Claudia looked at the door.

“I wonder now if I should be frightened if I slept in the tower,” she thought. “I hardly think so. Yet it must be queer and lonely up in that empty room. I wonder if it’s at all moonlight to-night. I’ve a great mind to run up just for a moment. I’ll leave this door open, so that if I am frightened I can rush down at once.”

And half laughing at her own temerity, Claudia opened the door, propping it ajar, for it was a spring one, by the aid of a chair on the wide landing, and running along the passage, began the ascent of the stairs. A few steps led to the chintz room, the door of which, imperfectly latched, was rattling somewhat uncannily, as if some one were trying to get out. But Claudia did not stop to close it – she hastened on, up the two flights, to the tower room itself. The staircase was dark save for some light from below, whence, too, came the sounds of the servants moving about and speaking in the distance, for on the ground floor of this wing were some of the offices in regular use. Claudia was not sorry to hear the murmurs – it seemed less “ghosty.” But as she opened the tower room door and entered, it banged to behind her – and then it seemed indeed as if she were far away from everybody, up there with the moonlight and the owls.

For moonlight there was, though of but a faint and fitful kind. There was frost about, though as yet no snow had fallen this winter, and the outside world looked grim and unadorned, as Claudia went to the window and gazed out. Except where here and there a ray of light fell on the evergreen trees in the avenue, all seemed black and lifeless.

“How dreary,” she thought with a little shudder. “I can’t help pitying the ghost if his rambles are restricted to this melancholy room. I wonder what he did that was so wicked,” and her eyes rested unconsciously on the drive, seen here and there in patches of light and dark through the trees, down which poor Bridget Osbert so many, many years ago had crept away, sobbing and broken-hearted. Claudia had never heard the story, Lady Mildred herself did not know it, but as the girl stood and gazed a strange sensation – not of fear, but of pity and sadness – came over her; and suddenly her thoughts reverted to the mention made by her aunt of the cousins who had been disappointed in their expectations, some of whom apparently had held the last communication on record with the Osbert ghost.

“Poor things,” she thought; “I feel sorry for them. Perhaps they had some rights, after all. It must be hard to part with an old place like this, or to give up hopes of having it if one has expected it. There is something strange in the thought of inhabiting the very spot where one’s ancestors have lived for hundreds of years. It must seem so full of them – permeated with their feelings and actions. If they had been bad people, I think it would seem rather dreadful. I wonder why I feel this so much to-night. Standing here, I could almost fancy I was an Osbert – and I feel certain some of them have been very unhappy. I do feel so sorry for I don’t know whom! If the ghost appeared I really think I should have courage to ask if I could do anything for him – poor ghost.”

But nothing appeared, no sound broke the perfect stillness, save a low rustling wail from the wind as it came round the corner. And the moonlight faded again, and Claudia turning from the window saw that the room was almost perfectly dark, and for the first time a slight feeling of fear came over her. She hurried to the door, and was glad to see as she opened it that the light from the large landing shone faintly up the stairs. And in another moment she had run down, and was smiling at her own trepidations in the cheerful security of her own room.

“I am not so very brave after all,” she said to herself.