Silverthorns

“No; mine is very near. There is a swing door across the passage, and mine is the first door through it. But some one – Mrs Ball or some one – will sit up with you if you would the least like it.”

“No, no,” said Jerry. “I told them not to. I wouldn’t like it at all. Miss Meredon,” he went on, beginning to laugh, “don’t I look like Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, rather, with all these fussy things round my neck?”

Claudia burst out laughing too. She saw what made the child look so comical. He was enveloped in one of her own nightgowns with voluminous frills.

“Is it one of yours?” said Jerry gravely, tugging at the frills and solemnly regarding them. “I don’t like wearing girls’ things, but I don’t mind so much if it is yours.”

At this moment Mrs Ball returned.

“Miss Meredon, my dear,” she said, “the young gentleman must really go to sleep. My lady wouldn’t be pleased if she knew you were still here talking to him.”

“We couldn’t help laughing at the nightgown, Mrs Ball,” said Claudia. “It’s one of mine, isn’t it?”

“Yes, we made so bold. It was the nearest his size you see, missy dear.”

“Well, good night again, Gervais,” said Claudia as she left the room. “I do hope you will sleep well.” Jerry smiled back a good night. He seemed in better spirits now.

“Isn’t he a nice little fellow?” she could not help saying to Mrs Ball.

“And quite the little gentleman,” said the housekeeper. “But he seems delicate, poor child. Just to think of it – what a mercy that Stobbs’s boy was coming up that way, and that he had a lantern. For all that the snow had stopped, he’d have been dead before morning. I don’t like to think of it – at our very door, so to say, Miss Claudia, and us with no thought of it. But there – my lady’s just going down to dinner.”

Lady Mildred was very silent that evening. Her mind seemed full of many things, and Claudia, after one or two attempts at conversation, thought it best to give it up. Not very long after dinner the groom returned from Wortherham with a note addressed to Miss Meredon. He had found, so he informed his friends in the servants’ hall, the family at Norfolk Terrace in a fine taking about the boy.

“They were sending out in all directions,” he said. “The poor lady looked like dead, and the young ladies were crying fit to break their hearts. I never see such a sight. The other young gentlemen had been out skating on Gretham pond, and they thought as this one had got home hours before, as he should have done. I’m almost sure as it was he as stopped our young lady when we was a-driving home this afternoon.”

“Stopped our young lady!” exclaimed Ball in surprise.

“Oh, it was just some message about the school. The Waldron young ladies goes where Miss Meredon does,” said the groom. And as no more was said about the matter, Jerry’s and Claudia’s secret remained their own.

The note was from Charlotte. It scarcely bore traces of the agitation described by the groom.

“Dear Miss Meredon,” it began, —

“My father and mother wish me to thank Lady Mildred most sincerely for her kindness to my brother Gervais. They also thank you for writing to tell us of his safety. We were becoming very uneasy about him. My father will go out early to-morrow, and hopes to be able to bring him home in a close carriage. He and my mother regret exceedingly the trouble all this must have caused you.

“I remain, —

“Yours sincerely, —

    “Charlotte Waldron.”

Claudia handed it to her aunt.

“Humph!” said Lady Mildred, “a very school-girl production, dictated by her papa and mamma, I suppose.”

“Not stiffer than mine was,” thought Claudia to herself.

“That little fellow up-stairs has something original about him. I have rather taken a fancy to him,” said Lady Mildred.

“Yes,” Claudia responded warmly; “I think he’s a dear little fellow.”

“But he can’t be the eldest son; there must be one nearly grown-up, I fancy,” said Lady Mildred, with a little sigh.

Claudia looked up. What was Lady Mildred thinking of? What could it matter to her, or to any one, or to themselves even, whether Gervais was eldest or youngest of the Waldrons? A country lawyer’s family heirs to nothing.

“Aunt Mildred must be half asleep,” thought Claudia. “She might as well talk as if it mattered which of us was the eldest.”

Chapter Twelve

The Owls Recognise one of the Family

It seemed late to Claudia when she went up to bed that night, though in reality it was not much past ten o’clock. But so much had happened since dark, and it had grown dark so early with the snow-storm, that it would have been easy to fancy it was already long past midnight.

Claudia went to the window and drew back one of the curtains. The snow overhead had quite disappeared, but down below, it lay like a carpet of white, glistening faintly in the moonlight.

“How cold it looks,” thought the girl with a little shiver, and Mrs Ball’s words returned to her. Yes, it was dreadful to think that but for what seemed a mere accident, Gervais Waldron would by this time have been lying dead under the snow. And had it been so, it seemed to Claudia that she would always have felt or fancied cause for self-blame.

“How thankful I am he is not the worse for it,” she said to herself. “Poor little fellow – I would have insisted on sending him home if he had not said he was to be met. He was so anxious to get away once he had achieved his purpose. He is very anxious still to get away. I wonder if he can go home to-morrow. I am afraid he is rather unhappy at having to stay here – all night. By the bye,” and Claudia started as a thought struck her, “I hope he has not heard anything about the haunted room, and all that story. It was curious that he knew the name of the chintz room. I dare say the story is gossiped about by some of the old people in the neighbourhood, and he may have heard it.”

She did not like to disturb him again, and she hoped that by this time he was fast asleep. But she went out of her room as far as the spring door, between the old and new parts of the house, near which, on opposite sides, were both her room and Jerry’s. She propped the door open with a chair, so that if the boy were by any chance afraid and came to look for her, he should at once see where he was. For a small lamp burned all night on a side-table on the large landing, and even a little light goes a long way when all around is darkness. And as she made her way back again, she glanced up the old staircase to where in the gloom was the door of the tower room.

“I wonder if the ghost is awake to-night,” she thought, half-laughingly. “I always seem to think of the story on moonlight nights – perhaps because it is then that one is tempted to look out of the window, and that reminds me of the view from the tower room, right down the drive.”

But she looked out of the window no more to-night. She was tired, and fell asleep almost immediately she got into bed.

Her dreams were, as might have been expected, somewhat disturbed and confused. She had kaleidoscope visions of herself and Charlotte and Jerry, and a snow-man shaking white flakes over them all, which, on close examination, proved to be leaves of an exercise-book, covered with the German prize essay. Then looking up to complain, she saw that the snow-man had turned into Herr Märklestatter, who was running after Lady Mildred with a very angry face, while Lady Mildred called for help, screaming out, “It is the ghost, it is the ghost.” Claudia half woke up, roused, as it seemed to her in her dream, by her aunt’s cries. But all was silent, and she turned round, half-smiling to herself sleepily at her foolish fancies, and was all but dreaming again, when again a sound something between a sob and a low wail, penetrated to her brain, this time effectually, for she started up, quite awake, and listened in the darkness.

She had not long to wait. A low sound, this time translatable into words, reached her ears.

“Miss Meredon! oh, Miss Meredon! are you there?” said a most doleful voice. And then came a sort of sob or groan of intense distress, the same sound as that which had awakened her.

A faint, very faint light came from the direction of the door, showing her that it was slightly open. For the light could only come from the little lamp on the landing outside. But Claudia had a candle and matches on a table close at hand.

“Who is it? what is it?” she exclaimed, trembling a little in spite of herself, while she struck a match.

“It’s me, it’s only me,” was the answer. “I’m so ashamed. I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope you won’t think me very rude for waking you up, but I’m so dreadfully frightened. There’s been some one or something crying and sobbing for such a time near my room. I tried to think it was my fancy, or the wind, or the owls, as papa said. But at last I couldn’t bear it. I’m almost sure it must be the ghost.”

And by the candle which Claudia had succeeded in lighting, a queer, grotesque, but most pitiful little object revealed itself. It was Jerry of course – standing there with his poor white face, looking almost as pallid as when they had drawn him out of the snow the evening before, his blue eyes feverishly dark and bright, Claudia’s nightgown a mile too big for him trailing on the ground, and its frills standing up round his neck and sweeping over his hands.

“I am so sorry, Gervais, so very sorry,” Claudia exclaimed, almost as if it was all her fault. “Wait a moment, dear. I’ll put on my dressing-gown. Here,” and she flung him a shawl which was hanging on a chair close by, “wrap yourself up. You are shivering so. Is the fire quite out?”

“It’s not quite out in my room,” said poor Jerry. “I kept seeing little bits of light in it, and I think it made it worse, for once I thought I saw a shadow pass between it and me,” and he shivered again violently. “Oh, Miss Meredon,” he half sobbed, “I do wish you had let me go home last night.”

“But it was impossible – it really was,” said Claudia. “You will make me blame myself for all your troubles, Gervais. I should not have let you set out to walk home in the snow.”

“No, no, it wasn’t your fault,” said Jerry.

“Then try and leave off shivering, and tell me what frightened you so. And who can have been mischievous enough to tell you all that nonsense about the ghost?” she added indignantly.