Silverthorns

“You will get the prize if you try, you know that,” Jerry persisted. “If you give up trying Charlotte will think it a piece of wonderful good fortune. But I don’t think she or any one could be very surprised. You have everything you want, why should you care to work extra for a prize like that? It isn’t as if you had been years at Miss Lloyd’s, like the others – and – and – cared about it like them. And the teachers think you too grand, to be vexed with you whatever you do.”

“Grand,” repeated Claudia, with a little laugh, but it was not a bitter one. “I only wish you all – ” but she stopped. There was a good deal of truth in what Jerry said; she was only a new-comer, with scarcely a real right to enter the lists. And it was true too that she was free to retire without vexing any one, or involving others in her self-sacrifice. Lady Mildred would not care; her parents would, not improbably, take this boy’s view of the case. Self-sacrifice was the only one involved.

She turned and looked at Charlotte’s brother.

“Very well,” she said, “I promise to do as you wish. I cannot yet quite see how I shall manage it. You will not of course blame me if I find I cannot. I do promise you to do my best to get out of it, so that Charlotte shall have no rivals but her regular ones.”

Jerry looked up at her.

“Thank you,” he said, “thank you awfully. You are very good and – and kind. I wish Charlotte could know; but of course she never must. You’ll never tell anybody, will you?” he added.

“I’ll never tell any one by whom it could possibly come round to Charlotte,” she said. “And for some time to come I’ll not tell any one at all.”

“I’ll trust you,” said Jerry. “Now I must go. Oh but would you like me to walk up to the house with you?” he went on, with a sudden recollection of his “manners.”

“No, thank you,” said Claudia, secretly amused, for Jerry, though only three years younger, was about half her size; “oh no, thank you. You must get home as fast as you can.”

“That isn’t very fast,” said Jerry, “for I’m lame, you see,” and the child coloured painfully as he said it.

“And I believe it’s beginning to snow,” said Claudia, anxiously. “I do wish I could send you home somehow. Come up with me to the stables, and I’ll see what can be done.”

“Oh no, no, thank you,” said Jerry eagerly, for now that his great purpose was achieved, a nervous shyness was beginning to overpower him, and he felt only eager to get away. “I shall be all right. I’m going to meet our dog-cart down by the ‘Jolly Thrashers.’”

“You are sure?”

“Quite,” he repeated. “Good-bye, Miss Meredon, and thank you again, awfully.”

They shook hands, and the boy set off. Claudia stood watching him through the now fast falling snow.

“I hope he will be all right,” she said to herself as she turned towards the lodge gates.

Neither she nor Jerry had realised how long they had been talking. When Claudia went in she found Lady Mildred on the point of sending out to see if she had taken refuge at the lodge from the snow.

“I should have felt very unhappy about that poor boy if he had had any further to go than the ‘Thrashers,’” thought Claudia to herself more than once as the afternoon drew on into evening, and the snow fell so fast that one could not tell when the daylight really faded.

Chapter Eleven

Sent by the Snow

Claudia and her aunt were sitting quietly that same evening in the small drawing-room which Lady Mildred always used in the winter, and Claudia was thinking over her strange meeting with “the little Waldron boy,” as she called him to herself (for she did not even know his Christian name), and hoping he had got safe home, when her aunt looked up suddenly.

“How should you like to spend Christmas in London, Claudia? Would it seem very dreary to you?” she said.

“Oh no, Aunt Mildred, not if you wished it,” Claudia replied.

“I suppose the truth is, all places would seem much the same to you so long as they were not Britton-Garnett,” Lady Mildred observed, with a touch of acrimony in her tone. But Claudia understood her better now. She only smiled.

“I should not like to be there this Christmas, Aunt Mildred, if you were to be here alone. It would be awfully nice to be all together, of course, but it would be nicest if you were with us too.”

Lady Mildred sighed.

“I am afraid merry Christmasses are quite over for me. It is very dull here; it seems a sort of mockery for a poor old woman like me to be the centre of things, giving tenants’ dinners and school-feasts, and all the rest of it. I have not the heart for any up-stairs festivities,” and she sighed again. “After all, I dare say it would be less dreary in London. What has put it into my head is a letter from the lawyers saying that they may be wanting to see me on business.”

“Would you be going soon?” asked Claudia.

“I don’t know. It would not matter if you lost a week or two at school – you have been working hard lately.”

“No,” said Claudia, “it would not matter.” And the thought passed through her mind that if her aunt carried out this plan, it would remove all difficulties in the way of her not trying for the prize.

“No one would ever know that I meant to give it up at any rate,” she thought with a slight, a very slight touch of bitterness.

But at that moment the front door-bell rang violently. Both the ladies started.

“What can that be?” said Lady Mildred. “Not a telegram surely. Mr Miller would never think of sending a telegram on a Saturday evening, whatever the business may be that he wants to see me about.”

“Shall I run and see what it is,” said Claudia. For though there was a sound of voices and footsteps dimly in the distance, no servant appeared to explain matters.

“Yes, go,” Lady Mildred was saying, when the door opened and Ball, followed by a footman, appeared.

“If you please, my lady,” the butler began, “it’s Rush from the lodge. He begs pardon for ringing so loud at the front, but he thought it would be quicker. They’ve found a child, if you please, my lady, a boy, dead in the snow down the road. A farm-lad passing – the snow’s not so heavy now – found him and ran for Rush. But Mrs Rush is that frightened she’s lost her head, and their baby’s ill. So Rush thought he’d best come on here.”

A smothered cry broke from Claudia.

“Charlotte’s poor little brother,” she said.

But no one noticed her words. Lady Mildred had already started to her feet.

“Dead, do you say, Ball?” she exclaimed. “How do you know he is dead? He may be only unconscious.”

“That’s just it,” said Ball.

“Then don’t stand there like a couple of fools. You’re as bad as that silly Mrs Rush. Bring the poor child in at once – to the servants’ hall or the kitchen, or wherever there’s a good fire; I will come myself as soon as the front door is shut, I feel the cold even here,” and the old lady began to cough. “Claudia – ” turning round, but Claudia was off already.

She met the little group in the front hall. There were Rush and another man carrying something between them, and several other persons seemed standing about or emerging from different doorways, for even the best of servants dearly love a sensation. Claudia for one instant turned her eyes away – she dreaded to recognise the thin little face, whose blue eyes had sought hers so appealingly but an hour or two ago. Then she chid herself for her weakness.

“Carry him at once into the kitchen,” she said. “Her ladyship wishes it.”

Her voice sounded authoritative, and was immediately obeyed. Some blankets appeared from somewhere in a mysterious manner, and in another minute the small figure was deposited upon them before the friendly glow of the fire, and Claudia knelt down to examine the child more closely. Her eyes filled with tears as she saw that it was indeed “the little Waldron boy.” But even at that moment she had presence of mind enough to respect his secret.

“I don’t know what is best to do,” she said appealingly. “He is not a country boy – do you see, he is a gentleman?” she added, as Ball’s wife, the housekeeper, hurried forward. “But surely, oh, surely he is not dead!”

He looked sufficiently like death to make every one hesitate to answer. He had seemed pale and delicate that afternoon, but in comparison with the ghastly colourlessness now, Claudia could have described him as then florid and rosy! His eyes were closed, his arm dropped loosely when Claudia lifted it, his breath, if indeed it were there, was inaudible.

“Let me get to him, missy, please,” said the housekeeper, “and all of you gaping there, just get you gone. Here’s my lady herself – she’ll send you to the right-about. Ball, heat some water, and mix a drop or two of brandy. Then we’ll undress him and get him to bed. The chintz room’s always aired. Martha, light the fire at once and put some hot-water bottles in the bed. Dead! no, no. Let my lady see him.”

The room was soon cleared of all but two or three. Then they undressed the boy, whose frozen, snow-covered clothes were now dripping wet, and rolled him in the blankets. And in a few minutes, thanks to the warmth, and the chafing and friction which Mrs Ball kept up, the first faint signs of returning life began to appear, and they got him to swallow a spoonful of brandy and water.

“Feel in his pockets, Claudia,” said Lady Mildred, “and see if there is any letter or paper to show who he is. His people must be in cruel anxiety.”