Mrs. Molesworth - Silverthorns

“Thank you for nothing,” said Noble, who as usual was buried in a book. “I’m going to finish this chapter first. I’m not like some people I know, who have candles and matches at the side of their beds, in spite of all mother says.”

Mrs Waldron turned to Ted uneasily.

“Is that true, Ted,” she said, “after all your promises?”

Ted looked rather foolish.

“Mother,” he said, “it’s only when I’m behind with my lessons, and I think that I’ll wake early and give them a look over in the morning. It isn’t like reading for my own pleasure.”

Another laugh greeted this remark, Ted “reading for his own pleasure” would have been something new.

“But indeed, mother, you needn’t worry about it,” said Arthur consolingly. “I advise you to let Ted’s candle and matches remain peaceably at the side of his bed if it pleases him. There they will stay, none the worse, you may be sure. It satisfies his conscience and does no harm, for there is not the least fear of his ever waking early.”

Ted looked annoyed. It is not easy to take chaff pleasantly in public, especially in the public of one’s own assembled family.

“I don’t see why you need all set on me like that,” he muttered. “I think Noble might have held his tongue.”

“So do I,” said Charlotte, half under her breath. Then she too got up. “I’m going to bed. Good night, mamma,” and she stooped to kiss her mother; and in a few minutes, Noble having shut up his book resolutely at the end of the chapter, all the brothers had left the room, and the husband and wife were alone.

Mrs Waldron leant her pretty head on the arm of the sofa for a minute or two without speaking. She was tired, as she well might be, and somehow on Saturday night she felt as if she might allow herself to own to it. Mr Waldron looked at her with a rather melancholy expression on his own face.

“Yes,” he said aloud, though in reality speaking to himself, “we pay pretty dear for our power of sympathising.”

“What did you say?” asked his wife, looking up.

“Nothing, dear. I was only thinking of some talk I had with Charlotte – I was trying to show her the advantages of poverty,” he said, smiling.

“ Poverty !” repeated his wife; “but nothing like poverty comes near her, or any of them, – at least it is not as bad as that.”

“No, no. I should not have used the word. I should rather have said, as I did to her, of not being rich.”

“Charlotte does not seem herself,” said Mrs Waldron. “I wonder if anything is troubling her.”

“She is waking up, perhaps,” said the father, “and that is a painful process sometimes. Though she is so clever, she is wonderfully young for her age too. Life has been smooth for her, even though we are so poor – not rich,” he corrected with a smile.

“But is there anything special on her mind? What made you talk in that way?”

“She will be telling you herself of some report – oh, I dare say it is true enough – that Lady Mildred Osbert is arranging to send this niece of hers, this girl whom, as I told you, she is said to have adopted, to Miss Lloyd’s. And of course they are all gossiping about it, chattering about the girl’s beauty and magnificence, and all the rest of it. After all, Amy, I sometimes wish we had not sent Charlotte to school at all; there seems always to be silly chatter.”

“But what could we do? We could not possibly have afforded a governess – for one girl alone; and I, even if I had the time, I am not highly educated enough myself to carry on so very clever a girl as Charlotte.”

“No; I sometimes wish she were less clever. She might have been more easily satisfied.”

“But she is not dissatisfied,” said Mrs Waldron. “On the contrary, she has seemed more than content, she is full of interest and energy. I have been so glad she was clever; it is so much easier for a girl with decidedly intellectual tastes to be happy in a circumscribed life like ours.”

“Yes, in one sense. But Charlotte has other tastes too. She would enjoy the beauty, the completeness of life possible when people are richer, intensely. And at school she has been made a sort of pet and show pupil of. It will be trying to a girl of fifteen to see a new queen in her little world.”

“But – she need not interfere with Charlotte. It is not probable that she will be as talented.”

“That was one of Jerry’s consolations,” said Mr Waldron with a smile. “It was rather a pity I happened to take Charlotte to Silverthorns to-night. It seems to have deepened the impression.”

“She only waited outside. My dear, we cannot keep the children in cotton-wool.”

“No, of course not. It is perhaps because going to Silverthorns always irritates me myself, though I am ashamed to own it, even to you. But to remember my happy boyhood there – when I was treated like a child of the house. It was false kindness of my grandmother and my grand-uncle. But they meant it well, and I never let her know I felt it to have been so.”

“Of course your uncle would have done something more securely for you had he foreseen all your grandmother’s losses. One must remember that.”

“Yes; but it isn’t only the money, Amy. It is Lady Mildred’s determined avoidance of acknowledging us in any way. The cool way she treats me entirely as the local lawyer. She has no idea I feel it. I take good care of that. And then, to be sure, she never saw me there long ago! Grandmother never entered the doors after her brother’s death.”

“No, so you have told me. I suppose Lady Mildred, if she ever gives a thought to us at all, just thinks we are some distant poor relations of a bygone generation of Osberts,” said Mrs Waldron. “And after all it is pretty much the state of the case, except for your having been so associated with the place as a child. I am always glad that the children have never heard of the connection. It would only have been a source of mortification to them.”

“Yes; and my long absence from the neighbourhood made it easy to say nothing about it. You will know how to speak to Charlotte when she tells you, as no doubt she will, about this new class-fellow. I wish it had not happened, for even if the girl is a very nice girl, I should not wish them to make friends,” said Mr Waldron. “It would probably only lead to complications more or less disagreeable. As Lady Mildred has chosen absolutely to ignore us as relations, I would not allow the children to receive anything at all, even the commonest hospitality, from her.”

“I wonder if the girl is nice,” said Mrs Waldron. “She must be spoilt. I should be afraid, if Lady Mildred makes such a pet of her. Do you know her name?” Mr Waldron shook his head.

“She is a niece of Lady Mildred’s, I believe – perhaps a grand-niece. She may be a Miss Meredon – that was Lady Mildred’s maiden name, but I really don’t know. I did not catch her name when her aunt spoke to her.”

“Oh, you saw her then?” exclaimed Mrs Waldron with some surprise. “What is she like?”

Mr Waldron smiled.

“Amy, you’re nearly as great a baby as Charlotte,” he said. “She was quite excited when I said I had seen this wonderful young person. What is she like? Well, I must own that for once gossip has spoken the truth in saying that she is very pretty. I only saw her for half a second, but she struck me as both very pretty and very sweet-looking.”

“Not prettier than Charlotte?” asked Charlotte’s mother, half laughing at herself as she put the question.

“Well, yes, I’m afraid poor Gipsy wouldn’t stand comparison with this child. She is really remarkably lovely.”

“Ah, well,” said Mrs Waldron, “Charlotte is above being jealous, or even envious of mere beauty. Still – altogether – yes, I think I agree with you that I am sorry Lady Mildred is going to send the girl to Miss Lloyd’s; for we cannot wish that Charlotte and she should make friends under the circumstances. It would only be putting our child in the way of annoyances, and possibly mortification. And I should be sorry to have to explain things to her or to the boys. I do so long to keep them unworldly and – unsuspicious, unsoured – poor though they may have to be,” and the mother sighed a little.