Silverthorns

“It wasn’t any one here,” said Jerry. “I’ve known it a long time, and I never was frightened before. It was papa who told it us – he stayed here once when he was a little boy, and he was frightened himself. And he slept in the very room where I am now – that is how I knew the name.”

“Well, if your father knows the whole story he might have told you that the ghost never appears to or is heard by any one but a member of the Osbert family, which shows you couldn’t have heard it, my dear Gervais,” said Claudia smiling, in order to comfort him, though to tell the truth her own heart was beating a good deal faster than usual.

Jerry’s face cleared.

“I didn’t know that,” he said. “I am very glad.”

“But what am I to do?” said Claudia. “I must get you warm again. I suppose I had better call up Mrs Ball or some one.”

“Oh, no, please don’t,” Jerry entreated. “I should be so ashamed. I’ll try and not mind now, if you’d let me have the candle to go back to my room with.”

But his wan face and trembling voice belied his words – though Claudia respected him the more for his struggle to overcome his fears.

“I’ll go with you to your room,” she said, “and we’ll try to make up the fire. It would be much cheerier with a good blaze, wouldn’t it?”

The two took their way across the landing through the door, which Claudia had so thoughtfully propped open. And “Oh,” Jerry ejaculated, “I don’t know what I would have done if that door had been shut!”

The fire was by no means in a hopeless condition, and it was not the first time by any means that Claudia had skilfully doctored one. For she had taken her share in many days and nights too of nursing at home, when her father’s eyes were at their worst, or the younger children had measles or scarlet fever. And soon a bright blaze rewarded her efforts.

“How clever you are,” said Jerry admiringly. “I don’t believe Charlotte could do up a fire like that. I didn’t think – ”

“What?” said Claudia.

“I didn’t think such – such a grand girl as you would know how to do things like that.”

Claudia turned her laughing face, on which rested the glow of the fire, towards the boy, who was now comfortably ensconced in a big arm-chair with a blanket round him.

“You’ll have to alter your opinion of me, Gervais. I’m not ‘grand’ at all.”

“But I think you are; and I think you are very pretty. If you only saw now how the flames make your hair shine!” said the child dreamily. “And you are very, very kind. I shall tell Charlotte. I am not sure that she wouldn’t have laughed at me a little about the ghost. She thinks being frightened so babyish.”

“Perhaps she has never been tried,” said Claudia.

“What was it you heard, Gervais?”

“It was like sobbing and groaning in a muffled kind of way. It came from up-stairs, at least I fancied so; perhaps it was because I knew the haunted room is up-stairs – papa told me. At first I was rather sleepy, and I thought I was dreaming – I’ve had such queer dreams all night; perhaps it was with them giving me brandy, you know. And so I thought I was dreaming, and then when I woke up and heard it still, I thought it was the wind. But it seemed to come down the stair in the queerest way – really as if it was somebody, and almost into the room, as if it wanted me to get up and see what was the matter. And all of a sudden I seemed to remember where I was, and all that papa had told us came back into my mind, and I thought of the tower room up-stairs and the poor ghost crying all alone. Miss Meredon, I’m awfully sorry for the ghost, do you know! I used to think if ever I got a chance I’d speak to him, and ask him if I could do anything for him. But – ” and Jerry drew a deep breath.

“Only, Gervais, it couldn’t have been him after all; you see you’re not a relation of his.”

“No, but I didn’t know that. I’ll try to think that it was the wind, or the owls, or anything.”

“And that you were not quite well, and that made you more fanciful; you see you had been dreaming already in a fanciful way.”

“Yes,” said Jerry, though his tone was only half convinced.

“And now don’t you think you can manage to go to sleep? Get into bed, and I’ll sit here beside you. I will leave the candle alight, and I will make up the fire so that it shall last till morning. It is near morning now, I fancy.”

“Thank you, awfully,” said Jerry. “Yes, I’ll try to go to sleep. I don’t like you to have to sit up like that; as soon as I’m at all asleep, please go. I have a feeling that I won’t hear any more noises now. – Oh what a lot I shall have to tell Charlotte about how awfully good she is,” he said to himself. And he lay perfectly still and tried to breathe regularly so that Claudia should think he was asleep, and as sometimes happens, the simulation brought the reality. In ten minutes he was really and truly in a deep and peaceful slumber.

Then Claudia went quietly back to her own room. All was perfectly still up the stair leading to the tower, but a strange, puzzled, half-sad feeling crept over the girl.

“It really seems as if there were something in that old story,” she thought. “Why should that poor little fellow be so impressed by it? I can’t understand his father’s having heard it too. And Gervais said his father used to stay here as a boy. How could that have been? I wonder if it can have anything to do with Aunt Mildred’s prejudice against the Waldrons – for I am sure she is a little prejudiced against them.”

But Claudia was too tired and sleepy to pursue her reflections further, and her slumbers till the next morning were dreamless and undisturbed.

The little guest was fast asleep when Mrs Ball went to look after him.

“It is the best thing he can do, poor child. It would be a shame to disturb him. He does look a delicate little creature, to be sure. One sees it even plainer by daylight,” she said, when she came to Claudia’s room to report. “But you’re looking tired yourself, Miss Meredon, this morning. It was rather an upset for you last night. He did look deathly when they brought him in.”

“Yes; he looked dreadful,” Claudia agreed. “How is her ladyship, Mrs Ball? It was an upset for her too.”

“I’ve not seen her, miss; but she was ringing to know if the letters hadn’t come. It will be a very dull Christmas here if my lady goes up to spend it in town. We were hoping with a young lady like you here, missy, it would have been a bit livelier. There are some nice families about, where there are young people, but my lady’s got so out of the way of seeing any one, but just her own old friends.”

“I’m afraid my being here wouldn’t have made Christmas any cheerier, Mrs Ball,” said Claudia. “I don’t much mind whether we spend it here or in London. I’m glad to be a companion to Aunt Mildred, at least I’m glad that she seems to like to have me.”

“That she does, missy,” said the old housekeeper heartily.

Lady Mildred still seemed anxious and pre-occupied when Claudia met her at breakfast; but she was gentle and less irritable than was usual with her when she was at all uneasy.

“I have no letter from Mr Miller, yet. I cannot understand it,” she said; “he promised to write at once, and explain what this business is that he wants to see me about. He said it was nothing pressing – ‘pressing’ is such an indefinite word. If it was nothing pressing what did he say he wanted to see me for, and ask so particularly if I was likely to be in town.”

“It is as if he wished to talk over something with you, perhaps to see you more than once, and not hurriedly,” said Claudia.

“Yes,” said Lady Mildred, “that is the feeling his letter gave me. The little boy seems better this morning Mrs Ball tells me,” she went on.

“Yes, she came to my room to tell me so,” Claudia replied; she was on the point of going on to tell her aunt about the disturbances of the night when something made her stop short. It would be scarcely fair to Gervais to do so, she reflected; at any rate while he was still in the house and might dislike being cross-questioned about the matter, as Lady Mildred would probably insist upon. Then she shrank a little from bringing up the old ghost-story just now, when her aunt was already evidently rather uneasy, for Claudia had detected a certain dislike to and avoidance of the subject on Lady Mildred’s part, even while she affected to treat it all as nonsense.

“I will say nothing about it just now,” the girl decided.

They had scarcely finished breakfast when wheels were heard on the gravel drive outside, and there came a ring at the bell.

“Mr Waldron, if you please, my lady,” Ball came in to announce with his usual urbane solemnity. “He begs to apologise for coming so early, but if he can go up-stairs to see the young gentleman, he hopes it will not in any way disturb your ladyship.”

Lady Mildred rose from the table.

“Show Mr Waldron into the morning room,” she said; and when the visitor entered the room he found her already there.

“I am ashamed – ” he began, his usual rather cold courtesy to Lady Mildred tempered by the sense of his obligation to her; but she interrupted him.

“Pray don’t thank me, Mr Waldron,” she said; “I have done nothing to be thanked for. Hospitality in such a case is an absolute matter of course. I am only thankful the accident proved no worse. I have a good account of your little son this morning. You would like to see him, no doubt?”

Mr Waldron bowed.

“At once if possible,” he said.

Lady Mildred rang the bell.

“He is a fine little fellow,” she said, with perhaps the shadow of an effort perceptible in her tone; “but evidently delicate. You will excuse me for saying that it seems to me very rash to let a boy like him be so far from home and on foot in such weather.”