Mrs. Molesworth - Silverthorns

“Just so. No – it has been tried many times, and will be tried as many more perhaps, but with the same result. I don’t say that the tremendous disproportions that one sees might not be equalised a little without injustice. But I don’t want to give you a lecture on political economy. Only don’t mistake me. All I mean is, that in some ways the narrow road is harder for rich people than for others. But when they do walk in it, they are not seldom the best men and women this world knows. Still you can perhaps understand my meaning when I say that the possession of great riches would make me afraid.”

“Thank you, papa,” said Charlotte. “I think I do understand a little. I never thought of it like that before.” She was silent for a few minutes; then with the pertinacity of her age she returned to the subject with which her thoughts were really the most occupied.

“I don’t fancy somehow that Lady Mildred Osbert is one of the best rich people. Is she, papa? You don’t speak as if you liked her very much?”

“I don’t think one is justified in either liking or disliking ‘very much’ any person whom one scarcely knows,” Mr Waldron replied. “I have told you that I believe she does kind things. I believe she has done one lately. But if you ask me if I think – she is an old woman now – she is the sort of woman your mother would have been in the same circumstances, well no – certainly I don’t.”

And Mr Waldron laughed, a happy genial little laugh this time.

“That’s hardly fair upon Lady Mildred, papa,” said Jerry. “We all know that there never could be any woman as good as mamma.”

“My dear boy, what would mamma say if she heard you?”

“Oh, she’d quote some proverb about people thinking their own geese swans, or something like that, of course,” said Jerry unmoved. “That’s because she’s so truly modest. And if she wasn’t truly modest she wouldn’t be so good, and then – and then – she wouldn’t be herself. But I agree with you, papa,” he went on in his funny, old-fashioned way, “it is a good thing mamma isn’t rich. She’d worry – my goodness, wouldn’t she just! – she’d worry herself and all of us to death for fear she wasn’t doing enough for other people.”

“That would certainly not be charity beginning at home, eh, Jerry?” said his father, laughing outright this time.

“Papa,” said Charlotte, “what is the kind thing Lady Mildred has done lately? Is it about – the girl?”

“What girl? – what do you know about it?” said Mr Waldron, rather sharply.

But Charlotte was not easily disconcerted, especially when very much in earnest.

“A girl she has adopted. They say she is going to leave this girl all her money, so she – the girl – will be a great heiress. And she is awfully pretty, and – and – just everything. I heard all about it this morning at school,” and Charlotte went on to give her father the details she had learnt through the French governess’s gossip. “She is to drive herself in every morning in her pony-carriage, except if it rains, and then she is to be sent and fetched in the brougham. Fancy her having a pony-carriage all of her own!”

Mr Waldron listened without interrupting her. He understood better than before his little daughter’s sudden curiosity about Silverthorns and Lady Mildred, and her incipient discontent. But all he said was:

“Ah, well, poor child! It is to be hoped she will be happy there.”

“Papa, can you doubt it?” exclaimed Charlotte.

“Papa isn’t at all sure if Lady Mildred will be very good to her, whether she makes her her heiress or not,” said Jerry bluntly.

“I don’t say that, Jerry,” said his father. “I don’t know Lady Mildred well enough to judge. I said, on the contrary, I had known of her doing kind things, which is true.”

“Papa only said Lady Mildred wasn’t a woman like mamma,” said Charlotte. “She might well not be that , and yet be very good and kind. Of course we are more lucky than any children in having mamma, but still if one has everything else – ”

“One could do without a good mother? Nay, my Gipsy, I can’t – ”

“Papa, papa, I don’t mean that – you know I don’t,” exclaimed Charlotte, almost in tears.

“No, I know you don’t really. But even putting mamma out of the question, I doubt if Lady Mildred – however, it is not our place to pass judgment.”

Suddenly Charlotte gave a little scream.

“Jerry, don’t. How can you, Jerry?”

“What’s the matter?” asked Mr Waldron.

“He pinched me, papa, quite sharply, under my cloak,” said Charlotte, a little ashamed of her excitement. “Jerry, how can you be so babyish?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said Jerry penitently. “It was only – when papa said that – I thought – there’s another thing.”

“Has the moonlight affected your brain, Jerry?” asked his father.

“No, papa; Charlotte understands. I thought perhaps she’d rather I didn’t say it right out. It makes three things, you see – being stupid – and perhaps the haunted room and Lady Mildred being horrid to her. You see, Charlotte?”

But Mr Waldron’s face – what they could see of it, that is to say, for the clouds seemed to be reassembling in obedience to some invisible summons, and a thick dark one, just at that moment, was beginning to veil the moon’s fair disc – expressed unmitigated bewilderment.

“He means what we were talking about this afternoon, papa. Jerry, you are too silly to tell it in that muddled way,” said Charlotte, laughing in spite of her irritation. “I said it seemed as if that girl had everything , and Jerry thinks nobody has. He said perhaps she’s not very clever, and it’s true one kind of pretty people are generally rather dull; and perhaps there’s a haunted room at Silverthorns, and she may be frightened at night; and now he means that perhaps Lady Mildred isn’t really very kind. But they’re all perhapses.”

“One isn’t,” said Mr Waldron. “There is a haunted room at Silverthorns – that, I have always known. If the poor girl is nervous, let us hope she doesn’t sleep near it! As to her being ‘dull’ – no, I doubt it. She hasn’t the kind of large, heavy, striking beauty which goes with dullness.”

“Papa, you have seen her,” exclaimed Charlotte in great excitement. “And you didn’t tell us.”

“You didn’t give me time, truly and really, Charlotte.”

“And what is she like? Oh, papa, do tell me.”

“I only saw her for an instant. Her aunt sent her out of the room. She did seem to me very pretty, slight, and not very tall, with a face whose actual beauty was thrown into the shade by its extremely winning and bright and varying expression. All that, I saw, but that was all.”

“Is she fair or dark?” asked Charlotte. “You must have seen that.”

“Fair, of course. You know my beauties are always fair. That is why I am so disappointed in you, poor Gipsy,” said Mr Waldron teasingly.

But Charlotte did not laugh as she would usually have done.

“Charlotte,” said Jerry reprovingly, “of course papa’s in fun. Mamma is darker than you.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that papa’s in fun,” said Charlotte snappishly. “Besides, mamma isn’t dark, except her hair and eyes – her skin is lovelily white. There’s nothing fair about me, except my stupid light-blue eyes.”

“My blue-eyed gipsy,” said her father, using a pet name that had been hers as a baby.

“Dear papa,” said Charlotte; and the sharpness had all gone out of her voice.

They were almost at home by now. There had not been much temptation to look about them in returning, for the clouds were getting the best of it, and the moon had taken offence and was hiding her face.