Silverthorns

“About half-past two. All her class are staying later to-day.”

Mounted in the dog-cart among his brothers, Jerry set to work with calculations which they little suspected.

“It will take us three-quarters of an hour to get to the pond,” he thought. “She will be leaving Miss Lloyd’s about a quarter past two; say it takes her an hour to Silverthorns – she’ll go slower than we in this weather, I should think. Well, say only three-quarters – she’ll be near the first lodge by three, and it will take me about ten minutes from the pond. So I can stay there till a quarter to three or so – quite long enough; and I’ll tell them all then that I don’t want to stay longer. And if I don’t meet her I don’t much care – I’ll just go up to the house and say I want to see Miss Meredon. I won’t go home without having done it, or done what I could, that is to say.”

But all this preoccupation of mind did not render him a very lively companion.

“I can’t think what Jerry comes for if he’s so glum,” grumbled Ted. And Arthur’s warning “leave him alone” had to be several times repeated to secure the drive to the skating-ground ending in peace.

Things fell out much as Gervais had anticipated. He stood about the edge of the pond, with some other non-performing spectators, for three-quarters of an hour or so patiently enough. It was a pretty sight; notwithstanding his absorption in other things, he could not but own this to himself, and he felt pride in his tall, strong brothers, who were among the most agile and graceful of the skaters present. And now and then, when one or other of the three achieved some especially difficult or intricate feat, Jerry’s pale face flushed with pleasure and excitement.

“How I wish I were like them!” he said to himself, as some of Charlotte’s revilings against the unfairness of “fate” returned to his mind. And with the recollection returned also that of the real object of his joining in the excursion. He looked at his watch, a pretty little silver one which his father had given him a year ago, when he was only twelve years old, though his elder and stronger brothers had had to wait till they were fifteen for theirs, – were there not some compensations in your fate, Jerry? – and saw that it was fully half-past two. Time enough yet, but he was really getting chilled with standing about, and he was growing fidgety too. He had felt braver about it all in the distance, now he began to say to himself, how very much easier it would be to speak to the girl in the road than to have to march up to the house and ask for her formally, and he felt as if every moment was lessening the chance of his meeting her. Just then Arthur came skimming by. Jerry made a sign to him, and Arthur, always kind and good-natured, especially to his youngest brother, wheeled round and pulled up.

“What is it, Jeremiah?” he said. “You look rather lugubrious – you’re not too cold, are you?”

“Yes,” said Jerry, not noticing in his nervous eagerness to get away, Arthur’s half-bantering tone, which he might otherwise have resented; “I am horribly cold. I don’t want to stay any longer. I just wanted to tell you I was going, so that you’d know.”

“All right,” Arthur replied; “you’re sure it won’t be too far for you, and you don’t mind going alone?”

“Of course not,” said Jerry, already turning to go. But with an “I say, Jerry,” Arthur wheeled back again. “It’s looking awfully heavy over there,” he said, pointing to the slate-blue darkness of the sky towards the north; “they say it’s sure to snow before night. Make the best of your way home. You know the shortest way – the footpath over the stile just beyond the ‘Jolly Thrashers’?”

Jerry nodded. Truth to tell, he had but a vague idea of it, but he could ask – and he must be off.

“Or,” said Arthur, making Jerry nearly stamp with impatience, “perhaps, after all, you’d better keep to the high road. There’s a strong chance of your falling in with Sam – he won’t have got back yet.”

“All right, all right,” Jerry called back, and then he set off at the nearest approach to a run his poor stiffened knee could achieve.

He looked at his watch as he ran – only twenty-five minutes to three! barely five minutes since he had signalled to Arthur! Jerry relaxed his speed – it was scarcely possible that Miss Meredon was near Silverthorns yet.

He walked on quietly, past the second entrance, and along what from a certain corner was called the Wortherham road, till he came to the first Silverthorns lodge. Then he began to breathe more freely; “the girl,” as he always mentally dubbed her, could not enter the grounds now without his seeing her. He looked at his watch for the third time – seventeen minutes to three. Just about the time he had planned. She should be here soon if she had left Miss Lloyd’s a little after two.

But he had been walking up and down the short stretch of road between the so-called first lodge and the next corner fully twenty minutes before at last the sound of wheels reached him clearly through the frosty air, though still at some distance. Hitherto he had not gone beyond the corner – it would have made him feel more nervous somehow to look all along the great bare road; but now he gathered up his courage and walked briskly on. He was still cold, and beginning to feel tired too, but new vigour seemed to come to him when at last he was able to distinguish that the approaching vehicle was a pony-carriage, and the Silverthorns one no doubt; not that he knew it, or the pony, or the driver by sight, but it was not very likely that any other would be coming that way just at that time.

Jerry stood by the side of the road, then he walked on a few steps, then waited again. The sound of the wheels drew nearer and nearer, and he heard too the tinkling of a bell on the pony’s neck. Then he distinguished that, as he expected, the carriage was driven by a lady, and then – it seemed to come up so fast, that in another moment it would have passed him like a flash had he not resolutely stepped forward a little on to the road, taking his cap off obtrusively as he did so.

“Miss – Miss Meredon,” he said in his thin, clear boy’s voice. “I beg your pardon.”

The pony slackened its pace, the girl glanced forward to where Jerry stood, with a slightly bewildered, inquiring look on her face.

“Yes,” she said. “Is there something wrong with the pony, or the harness, or anything?” forgetting that a mere passer-by stopping her out of good-nature to point out some little mishap would not have been likely to address her by name.

“No,” said the boy – quite a child he seemed to her, for thirteen-year-old Gervais was small and slight; “oh no, it’s nothing like that. It’s only that – you are Miss Meredon, aren’t you?” Claudia nodded. “I wanted to speak to you for a minute by yourself. I – I forgot about him,” he added in a lower tone, coming nearer her, so that the groom behind should not overhear him, which small piece of good breeding at once satisfied the girl that the little fellow was a “gentleman.” “I wouldn’t keep you for a moment. You don’t think me rude, I hope?” he went on anxiously, for one glance at the sweet, lovely face had made Jerry feel he would be very sorry indeed to be thought rude by its owner.

“Oh, no,” said the girl smiling; “I am only a little puzzled. You see I don’t even know who you are.”

But she began to throw aside the fur carriage rug as she spoke, as if preparing to get out to speak to him.

“I’m Ger – ” he began. “My name’s Waldron. I’m Charlotte – you know Charlotte? – I’m her youngest brother.”

“Oh,” said Claudia, in a tone of enlightenment. And then she knew what had seemed familiar to her in the very blue eyes looking wistfully at her out of the pale, slightly freckled face, with its crown of short, thick, almost black hair. “You are a little like your sister,” she said, as she got out of the carriage, “and you are even more like your father.”

For in Charlotte’s eyes, as Claudia at least had seen them, there was none of the softness which kindliness gave to Mr Waldron’s, and anxious timidity at this moment to those of his little son.

“Oh, do you know papa?” said Jerry, with a mixture of interest and apprehension in his voice.

“I’ll speak to you in an instant,” said the girl, by this time on the footpath at Jerry’s side. “Hodges,” she went on to the groom, “take the pony home – it’s too cold to keep him about. And tell Ball, if her ladyship asks for me, to say I am walking up the drive and I’ll be in immediately.”

The man touched his hat and drove off.

“Now,” said Claudia, “we can talk in peace. You asked me if I knew your father,” she went on, speaking partly to set the boy at ease, for she saw he looked anxious and nervous. “No, I can’t say I know him. I only saw him once for a moment, but I thought he had the kindest eyes in the world. And when I first saw Char – your sister, I remembered his face again.”

“Yes,” said Jerry, gratified, but too anxious to rest there, “papa is as kind as he looks. I wish you could see mamma though! But it’s about Charlotte I want to speak to you. Miss Meredon, will you promise never to tell anybody you’ve seen me? I’ve planned it all on purpose – coming out here and waiting on the road to meet you. Will you promise me? I shall never tell any one.”

Claudia looked at the anxious little face.

“Won’t you trust me?” she said. “Tell me first what it is you want of me, and then – if I possibly can, and I dare say I can – I will promise you never to tell any one.”

Jerry looked up at her again.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ll tell you. It’s about the German prize. Charlotte is breaking her heart about it – I mean about knowing she won’t get it.”

Claudia’s face flushed.

“But how does she know she won’t get it?” she said. “It isn’t decided – the essays aren’t even given in yet. Mine is not more than half done.”

“I know – she’s working at hers now. She’s working awfully hard, though she has no hope. You are much cleverer; you’re cleverer at everything, she says, and especially German. But you can’t ever have worked harder than she’s done. I suppose you learnt German in Germany? Of course that leaves no chance for the others.”

He could not look at her now; he wanted to work himself up to a sort of indignation against her, and in sight of the candid face and gentle eyes he felt instinctively that it would not have been easy.

“No,” said Claudia, and her tone was colder; “I have never been in Germany in my life. I have been well taught, I know, but I too have worked hard.”

“Well, I dare say you have. I don’t mean to vex you, I don’t mean to be rude,” said poor Jerry; “but you are cleverer, you are much further on; and you knew a great deal more than the others before you came. There is a sort of unfairness about it, though I can’t put it rightly.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

Jerry gulped something down like a sob.

“I want you not to try for the prize,” he said. “I can’t think that if you are good and kind, as you seem, it would give you any pleasure to get it when it will break Charlotte’s heart.”

A crowd of feelings rushed through Claudia’s heart and brain. What had Charlotte ever been or done to her that she should care about her in this way? Why should she make this sacrifice for a girl who had not even attempted to hide her cold indifference, even dislike? Could the loss of the prize be sorer to Charlotte, or the gaining of it more delightful, than to her, Claudia? Was it even in the least probable that the other girl’s motives were as pure as she knew her own to be?

But as her glance fell on the anxious little face beside her these reflections gave way to others. It might be more to Charlotte Waldron and her family than she – Claudia – could understand. Charlotte had resented the idea that her education was to be turned to practical use, but yet, even if she were not intended to be a governess, her parents might have other plans for her. They certainly did not seem rich, and Claudia remembered hearing that they were a large family. It was in a softened tone that she again spoke to Jerry.

“I hardly see that my giving up trying for it would do what you want,” she said gently. “Your sister would probably be too proud to care for the prize if she thought she had gained it by my not trying.”

“Oh, of course you would have to manage not to seem to do it on purpose. I could trust you for that,” said Gervais naïvely, looking up at her with his blue eyes. “And,” he went on, “Charlotte is fair, though she’s proud. She doesn’t pretend that you’re not much cleverer and further on.”

“I haven’t contradicted you when you said that,” said Claudia; “but I don’t think that I am cleverer than she is. In German I have perhaps had unusually good teaching – that is all.”