Mrs. Molesworth - Silverthorns

“Yes,” agreed Mr Waldron earnestly. “I am afraid the worldly spirit is just as insidious when one is poor as when one is rich. And do what we will, Amy, we cannot shelter them from all evil and trouble.”

“I shall be glad if this Miss Meredon, if that is her name, is not in Charlotte’s class,” said Mrs Waldron after a little pause. “I should think it unlikely that she is as far on as Charlotte. Miss Lloyd was telling me the other day how really delighted she and all the teachers are with her.”

“I hope they have not spoilt her,” said Mr Waldron. “She is not the sort of girl to be easily spoilt in that way,” said Charlotte’s mother. “She is too much in earnest – too anxious to learn.”

“I wish Ted had some of her energy,” said the father. “He is really such a dunce – and yet he is practical enough in some ways. We’ll have to ship two or three of those lads off to the backwoods I expect, Amy.”

“I sometimes wish we could all go together,” said Mrs Waldron. “Life is so difficult now and then.”

“You are tired, dear. Things look so differently at different times. For after all, what would not Lady Mildred, poor woman, give for one of our boys – even poor Jerry!”

“ Even Jerry!” said Mrs Waldron. “I don’t know one of them I could less afford to part with than him. Arthur is a good boy, a very good boy as an eldest; but Jerry has a sort of instinctive understandingness about him that makes him the greatest possible comfort. Yes, cold and selfish though she may be, I can pity Lady Mildred when I think of her loneliness.”

“And I don’t know that she is cold and selfish,” said Mr Waldrop. “It is more that she has lived in a very narrow world, and it has never occurred to her to look out beyond it. Self-absorption is, after all, not exactly selfishness. But it is getting late, Amy, and Sunday is not much of a day of rest for you, I am sorry to say.”

“I don’t know about that,” she replied, smiling brightly again. “Now that the boys are old enough not to require looking after, and Charlotte is very good with the little ones – no, I don’t think I have any reason to grumble. My hard-working Sundays are becoming things of the past. Sometimes I could almost find it in my heart to regret them! It was very sweet, after all, when they were all tiny mites, with no world outside our own little home, and perfect faith in it and in us – and indeed in everything. I do love very little children.”

“You will be more than half a child yourself, even when you have grey hair and are a grandmother perhaps,” said her husband, laughing.

“Mamma,” said Charlotte to her mother one day towards the end of the following week, “do you think – I mean would you mind?” She hesitated and grew rather red, and looked down at her dress.

“Would I mind what, dear? Don’t be afraid to say what it is,” said her mother, smiling. Her eyes half unconsciously followed Charlotte’s and rested on her frock. It was one which had undoubtedly “seen better days,” and careful though Charlotte was, nothing could hide the marks of wear.

“Is it about your dress?” Mrs Waldron exclaimed suddenly. “I was going to speak about it. I don’t think you can go on wearing that old cashmere at school any more. You must keep it for home – for the afternoons when you are working in the school-room, and the mornings you don’t go to Miss Lloyd’s; and you must begin your navy-blue serge for regular wear.”

Charlotte’s face cleared.

“Oh, thank you, mamma,” she said. “I am so glad. But – what about a best frock? You know, however careful one is, one can’t look really neat with only one regular dress,” and Charlotte’s face fell again.

“Of course not. Have I ever expected you to manage with only one, so to say? I have sent for patterns already, and Miss Burt is coming about making you a new one. And your velveteen must be refreshed a little for the evenings. By Christmas, if I can possibly afford it, I should like to get you something new for the evenings. There may be concerts, or possibly one or two children’s parties.”

“I don’t care to go if there are,” said Charlotte, “I’m getting too old for them. In proper, regular society, mamma – not a common little town like Wortherham – girls don’t go out when they’re my age, between the two, as it were, do they?”

Mrs Waldron smiled a very little. Charlotte was changing certainly.

“We cannot make hard and fast rules, placed as we are,” she said. “If you don’t care to go to any more children’s parties you need not. But of course Wortherham is your – our – home. I might wish it were in a different place for many reasons, but wishing in such cases is no use, and indeed often does harm. And on the whole it is better to have some friendly intercourse with the people one lives among, even though they may not be very congenial, than to shut oneself out from all sympathies and interests except home ones.” Charlotte did not at once answer, and indeed when she did speak again it was scarcely in reply to her mother.

“I like some of the girls very well. I don’t much care to be intimate with any of them, except perhaps Gueda Knox, and she scarcely counts, she’s so little here now; but they’re nice enough mostly. Only they do gossip a good deal, and make remarks about things that don’t concern them. Mamma,” she went on abruptly, “might I begin wearing my navy-blue to-morrow? I will take great care of it, so that it shall look quite nice on Sundays till I get my new one.”

“To-morrow?” repeated Mrs Waldron, a little surprised. “To-morrow is Friday. Isn’t Monday a better day to begin it?”

Again Charlotte reddened a little.

“Mamma,” she said, “it’s just that I don’t want to begin it on Monday. That girl is coming on Monday for the first time – Lady Mildred’s niece, you know. And you don’t know how I should hate them saying I had got a new dress because of her coming.”

“Would they really be so ill-bred?” exclaimed Mrs Waldron, almost startled.

“Oh, yes. They don’t mean it, they don’t know better. Mamma, I don’t think you can know quite as well as I do how common some of the people here are,” and Charlotte’s face took an expression almost of disgust. “When you see the ladies you call on, they are on their good behaviour, I suppose, and if they did begin to gossip you would somehow manage to discourage it. Oh, mamma, you should be glad you weren’t brought up here.”

Mrs Waldron was half distressed and half amused.

“But we must make the best of it,” she said. “We can’t leave Wortherham, Charlotte.”

“Couldn’t we go and live quite in the country, however quiet and dull it was? I wouldn’t mind.”

“No; for several years at least it would be impossible. There may be opportunities for starting the boys in life here that we must not neglect. And living quite in the country would entail more fatigue for your father.” Charlotte sighed.

“My dear child,” said her mother, “I don’t quite understand you. You have never seemed discontented with your home before. You must not get to take such a gloomy view of things.”

“I don’t mean to be discontented, mamma,” said Charlotte.

“Well, dear, try and get over it. You will have to meet many people in life apparently more favoured and fortunate than you. Perhaps things have in some ways been too smooth for you, Charlotte.”

“Mamma, I am not so selfish as you think. It is not only for myself I’d like some things to be different. Besides, I am old enough now to know that you and papa have a great deal of anxiety. Do you think I only care for myself, mamma?”