Chapter Four.The New Pupil.“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 shouldhatethem 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?Iwouldn’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?”“No, dear, I don’t. But don’t you think the best way to help us would be by letting us see that you are happy, and appreciating the advantages wecangive you?”“Yes, mamma,” said Charlotte, submissively enough. But her mother’s eyes followed her somewhat anxiously as she left the room.The amount of gossip at Miss Lloyd’s school about the expected new pupil was certainly absurd. The young lady’s riches and beauty and connections were discussed and exaggerated as only school-girls can discuss and exaggerate such matters, and the one girl who said nothing, and scarcely seemed to listen to all the chatter, was yet perhaps the most impressed by it.Charlotte took care to be early in her place that Monday morning. There was half-an-hour’s “preparation”—spent by the conscientious pupils in refreshing their memories by running over the lessons already thoroughly learnt, by the lazy ones in endeavouring to compress into the short space of time the work which should have taken several hours, and by the incorrigibly careless and indifferent in whispered banter or gossip—before the regular work of the day began. And Charlotte, who it need hardly be said belonged to the first category, was looking over a German translation in which she was soon so interested as really to have forgotten the impending arrival, when the class-room door opened, and Miss Lloyd appeared, conducting the new pupil.“Good morning, young ladies,” she said quietly as usual, glancing round at the two rows of girls who stood up as she came in.“I wish to introduce you all and Miss Meredon to each other. Miss Meredon is to be a fellow-worker with you for some time.”This was Miss Lloyd’s customary formula of presentation, and she made it with simplicity and dignity, in no way departing from her usual words or manner. Some of the girls raised their eyebrows with surprise that the advent of this much-talked-of young lady should have called forth no greater demonstration; some, and Mr Waldron’s daughter among them, felt their respect for the quiet, somewhat prim little lady sensibly rise as they listened to her.“She’snot a snob, any way,” thought Charlotte, and then she half reluctantly allowed her eyes to turn to the girl standing beside the lady-principal. “Papa” had said she was lovely, so had Dr Lewis, but papa’s opinion carried of course far more weight. But, even without it, even without any prepossession or expectation on the subject, Charlotte felt that her very first glance decided it. The girlwaslovely—far, far more than “pretty,” like little Isabel Lewis, with her merry eyes and turned-up nose, or “interesting,” like pale-faced Gueda Knox. She was really lovely. Not very fair, but with a brightness rather than brilliance about her which came from one scarcely knew where—it seemed a part of herself, of her sunny hair, of her slightly flushed cheeks, of her smiling and yet appealing eyes, of her whole self. Her very attitude suggested full, springing, and yet gentle, youthful life as she stood there, one foot slightly advanced, her hand half upraised, as if ready and desirous to be friends and friendly with every one; and a slight, very slight shade of disappointment seemed to pass over her face when she saw that nothing followed the little formal speech, that no one among the several girls came forward to greet or welcome her. And as Miss Lloyd turned towards her the hand dropped quietly, and the speaking eyes looked gravely and inquiringly at her conductress.“What am I to do now?” they seemed to say. “I was ready to shake hands with them all; I do hope I shall understand what to do.”Miss Lloyd spoke as if in reply to her unexpressed question.“You can sit here in the mean time, Miss Meredon,” she said, pointing to a side-table. “I shall give you a regular place when it is decided what classes you shall join. In a few minutes the first—that means the head German class—will begin. You can take part in it, so that Herr Märklestatter can judge if you are sufficiently advanced to join in it.”Then Miss Lloyd’s keen eyes ran along the rows of girls still standing; as they rested for a moment on Charlotte Waldron’s grave, almost solemn face she hesitated, but only for that moment, and then looked past her again.“Sit down, young ladies,” she said. “But you, Miss Lathom,” she went on, addressing a thin, delicate-looking girl with a gentle expression—poor thing, she was training for a governess, for which, alas! her fragile health ill-suited her,—“bring your German books here, and give Miss Meredon some little idea of what you are doing.”“Thank you, that will be very kind,” said the new pupil brightly, as if delighted to have an opportunity of expressing some part of her eager good-will; and as Miss Lathom, blushing with the distinction, came shyly from her place, Miss Meredon hastened forward a step or two to meet her, and took some of the pile of books out of her hands. Then the two sat down at the side-table, and the other girls having resumed their places, the class-room subsided into its usual quiet.Charlotte’s mind was in a curious state of confusion. She was in a sense disappointed, yet at the same time relieved that she had not been picked out to act mentor to the new pupil. She knew that Miss Lloyd’s not having chosen her in no way reflected upon her position in the German class, where she had long ago distanced her companions.“If it had been French,” she thought to herself, “I might have been a little vexed, for Miss Lathom does speak French better than I do, with having been so much in France; but in German—she is further back than Gueda even. I suppose Miss Lloyd chose Fanny Lathom because she knows she is going to be a governess.”She was about right; but had she overheard a conversation the day before between Lady Mildred and the lady-principal, she would have felt less philosophical as to the choice not having fallen on herself.“I have a very nice set of pupils,” Miss Lloyd had said, “none whom Miss Meredon can in the least dislike associating with. Indeed, two or three of them belong to some of our leading families—Miss Knox, the vicar’s daughter, and the two little Fades, whose father is Colonel of the regiment stationed here, and Miss Waldron—she is a most charming girl, and, I may say, my most promising pupil, and nearly of Miss Meredon’s age.”“Waldron,” Lady Mildred had repeated. “Oh, yes, to be sure, the lawyer’s daughter; I remember the name. Oh, indeed, very respectable families no doubt. But I wish you to understand, Miss Lloyd, that it is not for companionship but for lessons that I send you my niece. I wish her to makenointimacies. She knows my wishes and she will adhere to them, but it is as well you should understand them too.”“So far as it is in my power, I shall of course be guided by them,” Miss Lloyd had replied somewhat stiffly. “All my pupils come here to learn, not to amuse themselves. But I can only act by Miss Meredon precisely as I do by the others. It would be completely contrary to the spirit of the—the establishment,”—Miss Lloyd’s one weakness was that she could not bring herself to speak of her “school,”—“of my classes, were I to keep any one girl apart from the others, ‘hedging her round’ with some impalpable dignities, as it were,” she went on with a little smile, intended to smooth down her protest.Lady Mildred was not foolish enough to resent it, but she kept her ground.“Ah, well,” she said, “I must leave it to my niece’s own sense. She is not deficient in it.”Still the warning had not been without its effect. Miss Lloyd had no wish to offend the lady of Silverthorns. And a kindly idea of being of possible use to Fanny Lathom had also influenced her.“If this girl is backward, as she probably is,” she thought, “Fanny may have a chance of giving her private lessons in the holidays, or some arrangement of that kind.”But Charlotte was in happy ignorance of Lady Mildred’s depreciating remarks, as she sat, to all outward appearance, buried in her German translation, in reality peeping from time to time at the bright head in the corner of the room, round which all the sunshine seemed to linger, listening eagerly for the faintest sound of the pretty voice, or wishing that Miss Meredon would look up for a moment that she might catch the beautiful outlines of her profile.“Sheislovely,” thought Charlotte, “and she is most perfectly dressed, though it looks simple. And—it is true she seems sweet. But very likely that look is all put on, though even if it isn’t what credit is it to her? Who wouldn’t look and feel sweet if they had everything in the world they could wish for? I dare say I could look sweet too in that case. There’s only one comfort, I’m not likely to have much to do with her. If Fanny Lathom’s German is good enough for her I may be pretty sure she won’t be in the top classes. And any one so pretty as she is—she must give a great deal of time to her dress too—issurenot to be very clever or to care much for clever things.”Ten minutes passed—then a bell rang, and Mademoiselle Bavarde, the French governess, who had been engaged with a very elementary class of small maidens in another room, threw the door open for the six children to pass in, announcing at the same time that Herr Märklestatter had come. Up started the seven girls forming the first class and filed into the Professor’s presence; Miss Meredon was following them, but was detained by a glance from Miss Lloyd.“I will accompany you and explain to Herr Märklestatter,” she said.He was a stout, florid man, with a beamingly good-natured face, looking like anything but the very clever, scholarly, frightfully hot-tempered man he really was. He was a capital teacher when he thought his teaching was appreciated, that is to say, where he perceived real anxiety to profit by it. With slowness of apprehension when united to real endeavour he could be patient; but woe betide the really careless or stolidly stupid in his hands! With such his sarcasm was scathing, his fury sometimes almost ungovernable; the veins on his forehead would start out like cords, his blue eyes would flash fire, he would dash from one language to the other of the nine of which he was “past master,” as if seeking everywhere some relief for his uncontrollable irritation, till in the minds of the more intelligent and sympathising of his pupils all other feeling would be merged in actual pity for the man. Scenes of such violence were of course rare, though it was seldom that a lesson passed without some growls as of thunder in the distance. But with it all he was really beloved, and those who understood him would unite to save him, as far as could be, from the trials to his temper of the incorrigibly dense or indifferent students. It was not difficult to do so unsuspected. The honest German was in many ways unsuspicious as a child, and so impressionable, so keenly interested in everything that came in his way, that a word, the suggestion of an inquiry on almost any subject, would make him entirely forget the point on which he had been about to wax irate, and by the time he came back to it he had quite cooled down.“I do hope, Gueda,” whispered Charlotte to Miss Knox, as they made their way to the German master’s presence, “I do hope that that stupid Edith Greenman has learnt her lessons for once, and that Isabel Lewis will try to pay attention. She is the worst of the two; it is possible to shield poor Edith sometimes.”“I wouldn’t say ‘poor Edith,’” Gueda replied. “She really does not care to learn. I feel quite as angry with her sometimes as Herr Märklestatter himself.”“So do I. But it would be such a disgrace to us all to have a scene the first morning, almost the first hour that girl is here.”“You sheltered Edith last week by an allusion to the comet. You did it splendidly. He was off on the comet’s tail at once, without an idea you had put him there. But I think you can do anything with him, Charlotte, you are such a pet of his, and you deserve to be.”This was true. Charlotte both was and deserved to be a favourite pupil, and she liked to feel that it was so.“Well, I hope things will go well to-day,” she said. “I should not like Miss Meredon to think she had got into a bear-garden.”“Do you suppose she knows much German, Charlotte?” whispered Gueda. She was a very gentle, unassertive girl, who generally saved herself trouble by allowing Charlotte to settle her opinions for her.Charlotte’s rosy lips formed themselves into an unmistakable and rather contemptuous expression of dissent, and Gueda breathed more freely. German was not her own strong point, and she disliked the idea of the new-comer’s criticism on her shortcomings.Herr Märklestatter’s smiling face greeted the girls as they entered the room.“Good day, young ladies,” he said. “A pleasant morning’s work is before us, I trust,” for he was always particularly sanguine, poor man, after the rest of Sunday. “Ah?” in a tone of courteous inquiry, as the seven maidens were followed by Miss Lloyd escorting the stranger. “A new pupil? I make you welcome, miss,” he went on in his queer English,—hopelessly queer it was, notwithstanding his many years’ residence in England, and his marvellous proficiency in continental languages,—as his eyes rested with pleasure on the sweet flushed face. “You speak German?” he added in that language.“Miss Meredon will be present at this lesson, Herr Märklestatter,” Miss Lloyd hastened to explain, “in order that she may see what work the advanced pupils are doing, and that you may judge which class she should join.”“Exactly so,” the German master replied. “Now, young ladies, what have you to show me?”The exercise-books were handed to him, certain tasks corrected and criticised at once, others put aside for the professor to look over at his leisure. Things seemed to be going pretty well, nothing worse than some half-muttered ejaculations, and raising of Herr Märklestatter’s eyebrows, testifying to the mistakes he came across. Then followed the pupils reading aloud, translating as they went. They were all far enough advanced to read fairly, but Charlotte Waldron read the best. To-day, however, a rather unusually difficult passage fell to her turn; she made more than one slight mistake, and hesitated in the translation of a phrase.“Come, come,” said the professor, glancing round, as was his habit, till his eyes fell on a look of intelligence, “who can translate that? Miss Knox, Miss Lathom, eh, what, you know it, miss?”For to his surprise, the young stranger, flushing still more rosily, but with a bright glance of satisfaction, looked up with lips parted, evidently eager to speak. “Yes?” said he. “Say what you think it is.”Miss Meredon translated it correctly, and in well-chosen words, without the slightest hesitation. Herr Märklestatter listened carefully.“Good! very good!” he said. “Continue then. Read the following paragraph. Aloud—in German first, then translate it.”She did both; her accent and pronunciation were excellent, her translation faultlessly correct.“You have read that before, Miss—”“Meredon,” replied the owner of the name.“Miss Meredon? You have read that before?”“No. I have heard of it, but I never actually read it before,” she replied innocently, evidently unconscious of the bearing of his remark. Herr Märklestatter’s face grew beaming.“Verygood,” he said; while Charlotte, half clenching her hands under the table, muttered in Gueda’s ears, “I don’t believe it.”The rest of the lesson went on in due routine, save that Herr Märklestatter made Miss Meredon take regular part in all. It became quickly evident that her first success had been no random shot. She was at home in every detail, so that at the end of the class, when giving out the work for next time, the master told her to write an essay in German as an exercise of style, which would have been beyond the powers of the rest of the pupils. Miss Lloyd came in as he was explaining his wishes.“You are giving Miss Meredon separate work to do?” she inquired. “If she is not up to the standard of this class, would it not be better—”But the enthusiastic professor interrupted her.“My dear madam,” he exclaimed, “not up to this class! Miss—but she is far beyond. Only you would not wish to have a class for one pupil all alone? And it will be of advantage—it will bring new life among us all. Miss Waldron, with your intelligence—for you work well, my dear young lady, only this morning not quite so well as usual—you will enjoy to work with Miss Meredon?” and the good man in his innocence turned his beaming countenance on Charlotte encouragingly.Not to save her life could Charlotte have responded with a smile. But Miss Lloyd spoke again before Herr Märklestatter had noticed Miss Waldron’s silence.“I am pleased to hear so good a report of Miss Meredon. You must work well, my dear, and keep up your place,” she said, addressing the new pupil.“Thank you; I will indeed,” Miss Meredon replied. “And thank you very much, sir, for your kindness,” she added, turning to the professor.Her face seemed positively alight with pleasure. It was really not to be wondered at that as the last girls left the room they heard him murmur the German equivalents for “bewitching, charming.”And one of these last girls was unluckily Charlotte Waldron.
“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 shouldhatethem 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?Iwouldn’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?”
“No, dear, I don’t. But don’t you think the best way to help us would be by letting us see that you are happy, and appreciating the advantages wecangive you?”
“Yes, mamma,” said Charlotte, submissively enough. But her mother’s eyes followed her somewhat anxiously as she left the room.
The amount of gossip at Miss Lloyd’s school about the expected new pupil was certainly absurd. The young lady’s riches and beauty and connections were discussed and exaggerated as only school-girls can discuss and exaggerate such matters, and the one girl who said nothing, and scarcely seemed to listen to all the chatter, was yet perhaps the most impressed by it.
Charlotte took care to be early in her place that Monday morning. There was half-an-hour’s “preparation”—spent by the conscientious pupils in refreshing their memories by running over the lessons already thoroughly learnt, by the lazy ones in endeavouring to compress into the short space of time the work which should have taken several hours, and by the incorrigibly careless and indifferent in whispered banter or gossip—before the regular work of the day began. And Charlotte, who it need hardly be said belonged to the first category, was looking over a German translation in which she was soon so interested as really to have forgotten the impending arrival, when the class-room door opened, and Miss Lloyd appeared, conducting the new pupil.
“Good morning, young ladies,” she said quietly as usual, glancing round at the two rows of girls who stood up as she came in.
“I wish to introduce you all and Miss Meredon to each other. Miss Meredon is to be a fellow-worker with you for some time.”
This was Miss Lloyd’s customary formula of presentation, and she made it with simplicity and dignity, in no way departing from her usual words or manner. Some of the girls raised their eyebrows with surprise that the advent of this much-talked-of young lady should have called forth no greater demonstration; some, and Mr Waldron’s daughter among them, felt their respect for the quiet, somewhat prim little lady sensibly rise as they listened to her.
“She’snot a snob, any way,” thought Charlotte, and then she half reluctantly allowed her eyes to turn to the girl standing beside the lady-principal. “Papa” had said she was lovely, so had Dr Lewis, but papa’s opinion carried of course far more weight. But, even without it, even without any prepossession or expectation on the subject, Charlotte felt that her very first glance decided it. The girlwaslovely—far, far more than “pretty,” like little Isabel Lewis, with her merry eyes and turned-up nose, or “interesting,” like pale-faced Gueda Knox. She was really lovely. Not very fair, but with a brightness rather than brilliance about her which came from one scarcely knew where—it seemed a part of herself, of her sunny hair, of her slightly flushed cheeks, of her smiling and yet appealing eyes, of her whole self. Her very attitude suggested full, springing, and yet gentle, youthful life as she stood there, one foot slightly advanced, her hand half upraised, as if ready and desirous to be friends and friendly with every one; and a slight, very slight shade of disappointment seemed to pass over her face when she saw that nothing followed the little formal speech, that no one among the several girls came forward to greet or welcome her. And as Miss Lloyd turned towards her the hand dropped quietly, and the speaking eyes looked gravely and inquiringly at her conductress.
“What am I to do now?” they seemed to say. “I was ready to shake hands with them all; I do hope I shall understand what to do.”
Miss Lloyd spoke as if in reply to her unexpressed question.
“You can sit here in the mean time, Miss Meredon,” she said, pointing to a side-table. “I shall give you a regular place when it is decided what classes you shall join. In a few minutes the first—that means the head German class—will begin. You can take part in it, so that Herr Märklestatter can judge if you are sufficiently advanced to join in it.”
Then Miss Lloyd’s keen eyes ran along the rows of girls still standing; as they rested for a moment on Charlotte Waldron’s grave, almost solemn face she hesitated, but only for that moment, and then looked past her again.
“Sit down, young ladies,” she said. “But you, Miss Lathom,” she went on, addressing a thin, delicate-looking girl with a gentle expression—poor thing, she was training for a governess, for which, alas! her fragile health ill-suited her,—“bring your German books here, and give Miss Meredon some little idea of what you are doing.”
“Thank you, that will be very kind,” said the new pupil brightly, as if delighted to have an opportunity of expressing some part of her eager good-will; and as Miss Lathom, blushing with the distinction, came shyly from her place, Miss Meredon hastened forward a step or two to meet her, and took some of the pile of books out of her hands. Then the two sat down at the side-table, and the other girls having resumed their places, the class-room subsided into its usual quiet.
Charlotte’s mind was in a curious state of confusion. She was in a sense disappointed, yet at the same time relieved that she had not been picked out to act mentor to the new pupil. She knew that Miss Lloyd’s not having chosen her in no way reflected upon her position in the German class, where she had long ago distanced her companions.
“If it had been French,” she thought to herself, “I might have been a little vexed, for Miss Lathom does speak French better than I do, with having been so much in France; but in German—she is further back than Gueda even. I suppose Miss Lloyd chose Fanny Lathom because she knows she is going to be a governess.”
She was about right; but had she overheard a conversation the day before between Lady Mildred and the lady-principal, she would have felt less philosophical as to the choice not having fallen on herself.
“I have a very nice set of pupils,” Miss Lloyd had said, “none whom Miss Meredon can in the least dislike associating with. Indeed, two or three of them belong to some of our leading families—Miss Knox, the vicar’s daughter, and the two little Fades, whose father is Colonel of the regiment stationed here, and Miss Waldron—she is a most charming girl, and, I may say, my most promising pupil, and nearly of Miss Meredon’s age.”
“Waldron,” Lady Mildred had repeated. “Oh, yes, to be sure, the lawyer’s daughter; I remember the name. Oh, indeed, very respectable families no doubt. But I wish you to understand, Miss Lloyd, that it is not for companionship but for lessons that I send you my niece. I wish her to makenointimacies. She knows my wishes and she will adhere to them, but it is as well you should understand them too.”
“So far as it is in my power, I shall of course be guided by them,” Miss Lloyd had replied somewhat stiffly. “All my pupils come here to learn, not to amuse themselves. But I can only act by Miss Meredon precisely as I do by the others. It would be completely contrary to the spirit of the—the establishment,”—Miss Lloyd’s one weakness was that she could not bring herself to speak of her “school,”—“of my classes, were I to keep any one girl apart from the others, ‘hedging her round’ with some impalpable dignities, as it were,” she went on with a little smile, intended to smooth down her protest.
Lady Mildred was not foolish enough to resent it, but she kept her ground.
“Ah, well,” she said, “I must leave it to my niece’s own sense. She is not deficient in it.”
Still the warning had not been without its effect. Miss Lloyd had no wish to offend the lady of Silverthorns. And a kindly idea of being of possible use to Fanny Lathom had also influenced her.
“If this girl is backward, as she probably is,” she thought, “Fanny may have a chance of giving her private lessons in the holidays, or some arrangement of that kind.”
But Charlotte was in happy ignorance of Lady Mildred’s depreciating remarks, as she sat, to all outward appearance, buried in her German translation, in reality peeping from time to time at the bright head in the corner of the room, round which all the sunshine seemed to linger, listening eagerly for the faintest sound of the pretty voice, or wishing that Miss Meredon would look up for a moment that she might catch the beautiful outlines of her profile.
“Sheislovely,” thought Charlotte, “and she is most perfectly dressed, though it looks simple. And—it is true she seems sweet. But very likely that look is all put on, though even if it isn’t what credit is it to her? Who wouldn’t look and feel sweet if they had everything in the world they could wish for? I dare say I could look sweet too in that case. There’s only one comfort, I’m not likely to have much to do with her. If Fanny Lathom’s German is good enough for her I may be pretty sure she won’t be in the top classes. And any one so pretty as she is—she must give a great deal of time to her dress too—issurenot to be very clever or to care much for clever things.”
Ten minutes passed—then a bell rang, and Mademoiselle Bavarde, the French governess, who had been engaged with a very elementary class of small maidens in another room, threw the door open for the six children to pass in, announcing at the same time that Herr Märklestatter had come. Up started the seven girls forming the first class and filed into the Professor’s presence; Miss Meredon was following them, but was detained by a glance from Miss Lloyd.
“I will accompany you and explain to Herr Märklestatter,” she said.
He was a stout, florid man, with a beamingly good-natured face, looking like anything but the very clever, scholarly, frightfully hot-tempered man he really was. He was a capital teacher when he thought his teaching was appreciated, that is to say, where he perceived real anxiety to profit by it. With slowness of apprehension when united to real endeavour he could be patient; but woe betide the really careless or stolidly stupid in his hands! With such his sarcasm was scathing, his fury sometimes almost ungovernable; the veins on his forehead would start out like cords, his blue eyes would flash fire, he would dash from one language to the other of the nine of which he was “past master,” as if seeking everywhere some relief for his uncontrollable irritation, till in the minds of the more intelligent and sympathising of his pupils all other feeling would be merged in actual pity for the man. Scenes of such violence were of course rare, though it was seldom that a lesson passed without some growls as of thunder in the distance. But with it all he was really beloved, and those who understood him would unite to save him, as far as could be, from the trials to his temper of the incorrigibly dense or indifferent students. It was not difficult to do so unsuspected. The honest German was in many ways unsuspicious as a child, and so impressionable, so keenly interested in everything that came in his way, that a word, the suggestion of an inquiry on almost any subject, would make him entirely forget the point on which he had been about to wax irate, and by the time he came back to it he had quite cooled down.
“I do hope, Gueda,” whispered Charlotte to Miss Knox, as they made their way to the German master’s presence, “I do hope that that stupid Edith Greenman has learnt her lessons for once, and that Isabel Lewis will try to pay attention. She is the worst of the two; it is possible to shield poor Edith sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘poor Edith,’” Gueda replied. “She really does not care to learn. I feel quite as angry with her sometimes as Herr Märklestatter himself.”
“So do I. But it would be such a disgrace to us all to have a scene the first morning, almost the first hour that girl is here.”
“You sheltered Edith last week by an allusion to the comet. You did it splendidly. He was off on the comet’s tail at once, without an idea you had put him there. But I think you can do anything with him, Charlotte, you are such a pet of his, and you deserve to be.”
This was true. Charlotte both was and deserved to be a favourite pupil, and she liked to feel that it was so.
“Well, I hope things will go well to-day,” she said. “I should not like Miss Meredon to think she had got into a bear-garden.”
“Do you suppose she knows much German, Charlotte?” whispered Gueda. She was a very gentle, unassertive girl, who generally saved herself trouble by allowing Charlotte to settle her opinions for her.
Charlotte’s rosy lips formed themselves into an unmistakable and rather contemptuous expression of dissent, and Gueda breathed more freely. German was not her own strong point, and she disliked the idea of the new-comer’s criticism on her shortcomings.
Herr Märklestatter’s smiling face greeted the girls as they entered the room.
“Good day, young ladies,” he said. “A pleasant morning’s work is before us, I trust,” for he was always particularly sanguine, poor man, after the rest of Sunday. “Ah?” in a tone of courteous inquiry, as the seven maidens were followed by Miss Lloyd escorting the stranger. “A new pupil? I make you welcome, miss,” he went on in his queer English,—hopelessly queer it was, notwithstanding his many years’ residence in England, and his marvellous proficiency in continental languages,—as his eyes rested with pleasure on the sweet flushed face. “You speak German?” he added in that language.
“Miss Meredon will be present at this lesson, Herr Märklestatter,” Miss Lloyd hastened to explain, “in order that she may see what work the advanced pupils are doing, and that you may judge which class she should join.”
“Exactly so,” the German master replied. “Now, young ladies, what have you to show me?”
The exercise-books were handed to him, certain tasks corrected and criticised at once, others put aside for the professor to look over at his leisure. Things seemed to be going pretty well, nothing worse than some half-muttered ejaculations, and raising of Herr Märklestatter’s eyebrows, testifying to the mistakes he came across. Then followed the pupils reading aloud, translating as they went. They were all far enough advanced to read fairly, but Charlotte Waldron read the best. To-day, however, a rather unusually difficult passage fell to her turn; she made more than one slight mistake, and hesitated in the translation of a phrase.
“Come, come,” said the professor, glancing round, as was his habit, till his eyes fell on a look of intelligence, “who can translate that? Miss Knox, Miss Lathom, eh, what, you know it, miss?”
For to his surprise, the young stranger, flushing still more rosily, but with a bright glance of satisfaction, looked up with lips parted, evidently eager to speak. “Yes?” said he. “Say what you think it is.”
Miss Meredon translated it correctly, and in well-chosen words, without the slightest hesitation. Herr Märklestatter listened carefully.
“Good! very good!” he said. “Continue then. Read the following paragraph. Aloud—in German first, then translate it.”
She did both; her accent and pronunciation were excellent, her translation faultlessly correct.
“You have read that before, Miss—”
“Meredon,” replied the owner of the name.
“Miss Meredon? You have read that before?”
“No. I have heard of it, but I never actually read it before,” she replied innocently, evidently unconscious of the bearing of his remark. Herr Märklestatter’s face grew beaming.
“Verygood,” he said; while Charlotte, half clenching her hands under the table, muttered in Gueda’s ears, “I don’t believe it.”
The rest of the lesson went on in due routine, save that Herr Märklestatter made Miss Meredon take regular part in all. It became quickly evident that her first success had been no random shot. She was at home in every detail, so that at the end of the class, when giving out the work for next time, the master told her to write an essay in German as an exercise of style, which would have been beyond the powers of the rest of the pupils. Miss Lloyd came in as he was explaining his wishes.
“You are giving Miss Meredon separate work to do?” she inquired. “If she is not up to the standard of this class, would it not be better—”
But the enthusiastic professor interrupted her.
“My dear madam,” he exclaimed, “not up to this class! Miss—but she is far beyond. Only you would not wish to have a class for one pupil all alone? And it will be of advantage—it will bring new life among us all. Miss Waldron, with your intelligence—for you work well, my dear young lady, only this morning not quite so well as usual—you will enjoy to work with Miss Meredon?” and the good man in his innocence turned his beaming countenance on Charlotte encouragingly.
Not to save her life could Charlotte have responded with a smile. But Miss Lloyd spoke again before Herr Märklestatter had noticed Miss Waldron’s silence.
“I am pleased to hear so good a report of Miss Meredon. You must work well, my dear, and keep up your place,” she said, addressing the new pupil.
“Thank you; I will indeed,” Miss Meredon replied. “And thank you very much, sir, for your kindness,” she added, turning to the professor.
Her face seemed positively alight with pleasure. It was really not to be wondered at that as the last girls left the room they heard him murmur the German equivalents for “bewitching, charming.”
And one of these last girls was unluckily Charlotte Waldron.
Chapter Five.Lady Mildred.Charlotte went home that Monday looking fagged and unlike herself. Her mother met her as she was going into the school-room, her arms loaded with books.“My dear, is that you?” said Mrs Waldron. “I did not hear you come in. What a dull, dreary day it is! You have not got wet, I hope?”“It was not actually raining. My frock got no harm,” Charlotte replied.But her voice was dull and dreary like the day, and though, as she had just said of the weather, “not actually raining,” the mother’s ears perceived that tears were not very far off.“Don’t go to lessons again immediately you come in,” she said. ”‘All work and no play’ makes dull girls as well as dull boys. Come into the drawing-room. Jerry came in looking so shivery that I am going to give him a cup of my afternoon tea. Come too, dear, and let us three have a few minutes cosily together. The other boys won’t be home yet.”Charlotte hesitated.“Mamma,” she said, “I must work hard—harder than ever; and then—I changed my blue frock immediately. You know I promised you I would, and if any one should come in I would not look very nice,” and she glanced at the old brown dress.“Nonsense, dear. It is most unlikely that any one will come on such a day. And take my word for it, you will work far better if you give yourself a little interval—a pleasant little interval.”Mrs Waldron opened the drawing-room door as she spoke, and Charlotte followed her. It did look pleasant and inviting, for well-worn as was much of the furniture, simple—in these days of plush and lace and gorgeous Eastern draperies—as were the few additions that had been made to it from time to time, Charlotte’s mother possessed the touch that seems born with some people, of making a room attractive. Her extreme, exquisite neatness had to do with it—the real underlying spirit of order, which has nothing in common with cold primness or the vulgar hiding away from observation of the occupations of daily life; and joined to this a keen perception of colour, a quick eye and hand for all combinations which give pleasure.“I can always tell when mamma has been in a room,” Charlotte would say, rather dolefully. “I wonder if I shall ever learn to give things the look she does.”The tea-table was drawn up near the fire, and Jerry was seated on a low chair beside it.“Oh, mamma,” he exclaimed, “I thought you were never coming. I have made the tea to perfection. Oh, and here’s Charlotte too. How jolly! It isn’t often that we three get a cosy tea together like this.”“Are you warmer now, my boy?” his mother asked. “You are very bluey-white-looking still.”For Jerry, unable to run or even to walk fast, was apt to catch bad colds in chilly weather.“I’m all right, thank you, mother. I’m quite hungry. Look, Charlotte,” and he raised the cover of a neat little china dish on the table, “isn’t that nice? I bought it for a present to mother. I got it from the old muffin-man—he was just passing. That’s why mamma invited me to tea, I expect.”Charlotte’s face relaxed. It was impossible to look and feel gloomy with such a welcome.“It isn’t fair for me to come too,” she said in her own pleasant voice; “one muffin isn’t too much for two.”“Nor for one, when it’s a proper tea,” said Jerry.“But this isn’t, you know. This is only a slight refection. We’re going to have our proper school-room tea as usual of course.”“And how have you got on to-day, Charlotte?” asked her mother, when the muffin and the tea had been discussed. She was a little anxious to hear, though careful not to let it be seen that she was so.Charlotte’s face clouded over.“Mamma,” she said, “I think you had better not ask me. You know I would tell you and Jerry more than anybody—but—I want to be good, and I can’t, and—perhaps there are some bad feelings that it’s best not to speak about.”Jerry looked up with fullest sympathy in his thin white face.“I don’t know,” said Mrs Waldron. “I can’t judge unless you tell me a little. Is it about that young girl, Charlotte? Has she come?”“Yes; she was there all day.”“Well, is she disagreeable? Does she interfere with you in any way?”“In every way, mamma. At least I feel sure it is going to be in every way. She’s—she’s to be in my class for everything. She’s—it’s no good hiding the truth—she’s awfully clever and far on, and ahead of us all.”Mrs Waldron’s face looked grave. She felt such sympathy with Charlotte that she was almost shocked at herself. She was only human! She had hoped that her child might be spared the special rivalry which she knew would touch her the most acutely.“Are you not fanciful, dear? How can you possibly be sure in one day that Miss—what is her name?”“Meredon, mamma. Claudia Meredon—isn’t it a lovely name?” said Charlotte with a rather curious smile. “Even her name is uncommon and beautiful.” Mrs Waldron could not help laughing.“You are going too far, my dear child. I am sure your own name is quite nice enough. You have no reason to be ashamed of it.”“Ashamed of it! no, mamma,” said Charlotte with heightened colour. “It isn’t that.”“But you are fanciful, dear, about Miss Meredon. How can you be sure in one day that she is going to distance you in all your lessons?”“She will do so in German, any way,” said Charlotte gloomily, “and that is almost the worst of all. Oh, mamma, if you had heard Herr Märklestatter to-day! Just out of contradiction I got an extra difficult piece to translate, and I stumbled over it rather, I know. At another time I wouldn’t have minded, and he wouldn’t have minded. But to-day—”“He wanted you to show off before the new girl of course, and very likely you did too, and that made you worse,” said Jerry bluntly.“Perhaps,” Charlotte agreed. “But oh, mamma, you would have been sorry for me,” and her voice broke.“I am sorry for you, my dear. It is a battle you have to fight. But you must be brave—about your lessons; you knowweknow you always do your best. That should keep you happy.”Charlotte gave a deep sigh. But before she left the room she stooped and kissed her mother.“Thank you, mamma,” she said.Jerry followed her to the school-room.“Jerry,” she said, as she sat down and spread out her books, “I must have had a sort of feeling that this girl was to do me harm. It is not true that things are even—she haseverything, you see. The worst of it is, that I almost believe she is good.”“Charlotte!” exclaimed Jerry.“Yes, it sounds awful, but you know what I mean. It makes it horrider of me to hate her, and I’m afraid I do. At least if she gets the German prize—the one he gives for composition at the end of the term—I shall.”“Shall what?”“Hate her,” said Charlotte, grimly.Jerry said no more.Had Claudia Meredon “everything?”Charlotte would assuredly have thought so more firmly than ever had she seen her at the moment when she was thus speaking of her. She was driving up the Silverthorns avenue in the pretty pony-carriage which Lady Mildred had appropriated to her use. It was a chilly evening, and the rain had been falling by heavy fits and starts all day. Miss Meredon was well wrapped up, however, and she drove fast. Her cheeks were glowing with excitement, and even in that most unbecoming of attire, a waterproof cloak, she looked, as Charlotte had almost bitterly allowed, “lovely.” Her bright hair crept out in little wavy curls from under her black hat, her eyes were sparkling—she looked a picture of happiness.“Don’t ring,” she said quickly to the groom, as she threw him the reins, “I’ll let myself in,” and she was out of the carriage and up the steps in a moment.The great front door was fastened from within, but Claudia ran round the terrace to a side entrance which she knew she should find open. And without waiting to take off even her waterproof, she flew down a passage, across the large hall, and into a smaller one, on to which opened the drawing-room where Lady Mildred usually sat when alone.“She cannot but be pleased,” thought the girl; “and if I am very quick, I may be able to write a word home to-night.”She opened the door, and as she did so she seemed to bring in with her a gust of the fresh breezy autumn air. The lady who was reading by the fire, or possibly dozing, for the light was growing faint, started and shivered.“Claudia,” she exclaimed, “for any sake, shut the door. How can you be so inconsiderate?”Miss Meredon closed the door gently and came forward.“Oh, Aunt Mildred, forgive me; I am so sorry,” she replied in her bright eager voice. “I was in such a hurry to tell you how capitally I have got on. I have been so happy. The school is delightful. And, aunt, only fancy—won’t mamma and all of them be pleased? The German master did so praise me! I am to be in the highest class, and—and—he said it would do the others good to have me with them. It’s not for myself I am so pleased—it’s for papa and mamma. And to think that I never had German lessons from any one but mamma.”She ran on so eagerly that it would have been almost impossible to stop her. And when she at last came to a halt, out of breath, Lady Mildred did not at once speak. When she did her words were more chilling than silence.“I do wish you were less impulsive and excitable, Claudia,” she said. “Of course I am pleased that you should take a good place, and all that; but I think it rather injudicious of the teachers to have begun praising you up so the first day. They would not have done so had you not been my niece. It is just what I was afraid of.”“Aunt Mildred, I assure you the German master knew nothing about who I was. And I feel sure he wouldn’t have cared if he had known. And it was more he than any one. Miss Lloyd is nice, but—she isn’t at all gushing. She just told me quietly that so far as she could judge I should be in the highest classes, and—and that it was plain I had been very well taught.”Lady Mildred looked up sharply.“You did not—I hope,” she said, “you did not think it necessary to enlighten them as to who had been your teachers?”“No,” said Claudia, “I did not, because you had told me not to do so. I don’t know in any case that I should have done so, aunt, for though you say I am so childish, I don’t feel inclined to tell everything to people I don’t know. Indeed I am not so silly, only—I couldn’t help running to tellyou, just—just as I would have done to mamma,” and Claudia’s voice quivered a little.“Oh, well,” said her aunt, “don’t excite yourself about it. I am glad to see you have sense of your own—indeed, I always say you have if you would only think a little. But you must learn to be less impulsive—you know how entirely I forbid your making any friendships or intimacies among those girls. What are they like—pretty fair on the whole?”“They were all very kind,” began Claudia.“Kind, child! Don’t use such stupid words. Of course they will be all only too civil. That’s not the question. What sort of girls do they seem?”“Some seem very nice indeed,” replied Miss Meredon. “The nicest looking of all, indeed she is rather a peculiarly pretty girl—I never saw any one quite like her, except—no, I don’t remember who it can be she reminds me of. She has quite dark brown hair, and a rather brown complexion, prettily brown, you know, and yet bright blue eyes. Her name is Charlotte Waldron.”“Humph!” said Lady Mildred, “like her father.” She was not fond of Mr Waldron’s very “Osbert” characteristics, though she scarcely allowed even to herself that he had any traceable connection with the Silverthorns’ family.“Oh, do you know them?” exclaimed Claudia, joyfully. “I felt sure when I saw her that you could not object—”“Nonsense, Claudia,” Lady Mildred interrupted. “Her father is the Wortherham lawyer, oraWortherham lawyer; no doubt there are plenty of them. And I should rather more object, if possible, to your making friends with this girl than with any others of the Wortherham misses. Mr Waldron has some little of the Silverthorns business, and I won’t have any gossiping about my affairs. You know the understanding on which you came to me?”“Of course I do, dear aunt,” Claudia replied. “I wish you would not think because I say out to you whatever I feel that I haveanyidea of going against your wishes. I only meant that this girl looked so—it sounds rather vulgar to express it so, but it is the only way to say it—she looks so completely a lady that I thought you would probably not mind my knowing her a little better than the others. I fancy we shall be together in most of our lessons.”“So much the worse,” thought Lady Mildred. “It is really very unlucky. I had no idea that Edward Waldron had a daughter old enough to be at school.”But aloud, after a moment’s silence, she remarked with a slight touch of sarcasm in her tone,—“So Miss Waldron also is a remarkably talented young person. She must be so if she is to rank with you, I suppose.”“Aunt Mildred!” exclaimed Claudia. In her place most girls of her age, Charlotte Waldron certainly, would have burst into tears, or left the room in indignation, but this was fortunately not Claudia’s “way.” She forced back the momentary feeling of irritation, and answered brightly: “I know you are only teasing me, Aunt Mildred. You don’t really think me so dreadfully conceited?”Even Lady Mildred could not help relaxing.“You are very sweet-tempered, my dear, whatever else you are or are not, and it is the best of all gifts.” She sighed as she spoke.“Now you will make me blush,” said Claudia merrily.“And was this Miss Waldron very ‘kind,’ as you call it—very ‘empressée,’ and all the rest of it?” Lady Mildred asked.“No-o,” answered Claudia, hesitating a little; “I can’t say that she was. Her manner is rather cold and reserved, but there is something very nice about her. I am sure she would be very nice if one knew her better. Perhaps she is shy. I think that gave me the feeling of wishing to be nice to her,” she added naïvely.”‘Nice’ in the sense of being civil and courteous, of course you must be. I trust you are quite incapable of being otherwise. And it is the most ill-bred and vulgar idea to suppose that the right way of keeping people in their places is by beingrudeto them. That at once puts onebeneaththem. But, on the other hand, that is a very different thing from rushing into school-girl intimacies and bosom friendships, which I cannot have.”“I know,” said Claudia, but though she sighed a little it was inaudibly. “Aunt Mildred,” she began again, half-timidly.“Well?”“Has the letter-bag gone? Can I possibly write to mamma to-night?”“The post-bag has not gone, I believe,” said Lady Mildred. “No doubt you can write. I suppose you are in a fever to report the German master’s compliments—if you think it amiable and considerate to leave your old aunt alone when she has been alone all day, instead of making tea for her and sitting talking with her comfortably. But of course you very intellectual young ladies now-a-days think such small attentions to old people quite beneath you. You will prefer to write in your own room, I suppose—you have a fire. I will send you up some tea if you wish it. May I trouble you to ring the bell?” But as Claudia, without speaking, came forward to do so, Lady Mildred gave a little scream.“Good gracious, child, you haven’t taken off your waterproof, and you have been standing beside me all this time with that soakingly wet cloak. If you are determined to kill yourself I object to your killing me too.”“It is scarcely wet, aunt,” said Claudia, gently. “But I am very sorry all the same,” and she left the room as she spoke.“Why do I constantly vex her?” she said to herself, despairingly. “I must be very stupid and clumsy. I do so want to please her, as papa and mamma said, not only because she is so good to us, but even more, because she is so lonely—poor Aunt Mildred. Of course my letter can wait till to-morrow. Oh, I know what I’ll do—I’ll beveryquiet, and I’ll creep into the drawing-room behind Ball with the tea-tray, and Aunt Mildred will not know I’m there.”And the smiles returned to Claudia’s face as she flew up-stairs and along the gallery to her room. Such a pretty, comfortable room as it was! A bright fire burned in the grate, her writing-table stood temptingly ready. Claudia would dearly have liked to have sat down there and then, to rejoice the home hearts with her good news. For they, as well as she, had been awaiting rather anxiously the results of her measuring her forces against those of her compeers. So much depended on the opinion of qualified and impartial judges as to her capacities; for, as her mother had said laughingly,—“It may be the old story of our thinking our goose a swan, you know, dear.”Yes, it would have been delightful to write off at once—a day sooner than they had been expecting to hear. But the very sight of her room confirmed the girl in not yielding to the temptation, for it recalled Lady Mildred’s constant though undemonstrative kindness.“No doubt it was she who told the servants to keep the fire up for fear I should be cold,” she thought. “Dear me, how very good she is to me. How I wish mamma, and Lalage, and Alix, and all of them, for that matter, could see me here really like a little princess! But oh! how I wish I could send some of all this luxury to them—if I could but send dear mamma a fire inherroom to-night! They won’t even be allowing themselves one in the drawing-room yet—they’ll all be sitting together in the study. Monday evening, poor papa’s holiday evening, as he calls it.”All the time she was thus thinking she was taking off her things as fast as possible. In two minutes she was ready, her hair in order, the rebellious curls in their place, her collar, and all the little details of her dress fit to stand the scrutiny of even Lady Mildred’s sharp eyes; and as she flew down-stairs again, she met, as she had counted upon, the footman carrying in the tea-tray. The drawing-room was quite dark now, as far as light from outside was concerned, and Lady Mildred’s lamp left the corners in shadow. It was easy for Claudia to slip in unperceived, for her aunt was not expecting her, and did not even raise her eyes when the door opened, and the slight clatter that always accompanies cups and saucers announced the arrival of the tea.“Tell Crossley to come in a few minutes to take Miss Meredon’s tea up-stairs,” said Lady Mildred, not knowing that the footman had already left the room, and that the movements she still heard were made by Claudia, safely ensconced behind the tray, and laughing quietly to herself. In another minute a voice close beside her made the old lady start.“Aunt Mildred,” it said, “here is your tea.”“Claudia!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were up-stairs in your room.”“Selfishly writing my letter home! Oh, aunt! how could you think I would be so horrid! My letter will do very well to-morrow. I did not think it was so near tea-time when I thoughtlessly spoke of it. Do you think I don’t enjoy making tea for you?—almost the only thing I can do for you,” said the girl with a kind of affectionate reproach.Lady Mildred was silent for a few moments. Then she said again, with a tone in her voice which was not often heard,—“Claudia, you have the best of gifts—a sweet and sunny nature. Try to keep it, my dear.”And Claudia felt rewarded.She sat up in her own room that night for half-an-hour to write the home letter.“Mamma would forgive my doing so for once,” she said to herself, “for I may not have time to-morrow. If I am really to do well at school I must work hard, and it will not be easy to do so, and yet to please Aunt Mildred. But I don’t mind how difficult it is—it will be worth it all to be able to help them at home without being separated. But oh, mamma, mamma! it is very hard to be away from you all!”And Claudia leant her head on the table and burst into tears.
Charlotte went home that Monday looking fagged and unlike herself. Her mother met her as she was going into the school-room, her arms loaded with books.
“My dear, is that you?” said Mrs Waldron. “I did not hear you come in. What a dull, dreary day it is! You have not got wet, I hope?”
“It was not actually raining. My frock got no harm,” Charlotte replied.
But her voice was dull and dreary like the day, and though, as she had just said of the weather, “not actually raining,” the mother’s ears perceived that tears were not very far off.
“Don’t go to lessons again immediately you come in,” she said. ”‘All work and no play’ makes dull girls as well as dull boys. Come into the drawing-room. Jerry came in looking so shivery that I am going to give him a cup of my afternoon tea. Come too, dear, and let us three have a few minutes cosily together. The other boys won’t be home yet.”
Charlotte hesitated.
“Mamma,” she said, “I must work hard—harder than ever; and then—I changed my blue frock immediately. You know I promised you I would, and if any one should come in I would not look very nice,” and she glanced at the old brown dress.
“Nonsense, dear. It is most unlikely that any one will come on such a day. And take my word for it, you will work far better if you give yourself a little interval—a pleasant little interval.”
Mrs Waldron opened the drawing-room door as she spoke, and Charlotte followed her. It did look pleasant and inviting, for well-worn as was much of the furniture, simple—in these days of plush and lace and gorgeous Eastern draperies—as were the few additions that had been made to it from time to time, Charlotte’s mother possessed the touch that seems born with some people, of making a room attractive. Her extreme, exquisite neatness had to do with it—the real underlying spirit of order, which has nothing in common with cold primness or the vulgar hiding away from observation of the occupations of daily life; and joined to this a keen perception of colour, a quick eye and hand for all combinations which give pleasure.
“I can always tell when mamma has been in a room,” Charlotte would say, rather dolefully. “I wonder if I shall ever learn to give things the look she does.”
The tea-table was drawn up near the fire, and Jerry was seated on a low chair beside it.
“Oh, mamma,” he exclaimed, “I thought you were never coming. I have made the tea to perfection. Oh, and here’s Charlotte too. How jolly! It isn’t often that we three get a cosy tea together like this.”
“Are you warmer now, my boy?” his mother asked. “You are very bluey-white-looking still.”
For Jerry, unable to run or even to walk fast, was apt to catch bad colds in chilly weather.
“I’m all right, thank you, mother. I’m quite hungry. Look, Charlotte,” and he raised the cover of a neat little china dish on the table, “isn’t that nice? I bought it for a present to mother. I got it from the old muffin-man—he was just passing. That’s why mamma invited me to tea, I expect.”
Charlotte’s face relaxed. It was impossible to look and feel gloomy with such a welcome.
“It isn’t fair for me to come too,” she said in her own pleasant voice; “one muffin isn’t too much for two.”
“Nor for one, when it’s a proper tea,” said Jerry.
“But this isn’t, you know. This is only a slight refection. We’re going to have our proper school-room tea as usual of course.”
“And how have you got on to-day, Charlotte?” asked her mother, when the muffin and the tea had been discussed. She was a little anxious to hear, though careful not to let it be seen that she was so.
Charlotte’s face clouded over.
“Mamma,” she said, “I think you had better not ask me. You know I would tell you and Jerry more than anybody—but—I want to be good, and I can’t, and—perhaps there are some bad feelings that it’s best not to speak about.”
Jerry looked up with fullest sympathy in his thin white face.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs Waldron. “I can’t judge unless you tell me a little. Is it about that young girl, Charlotte? Has she come?”
“Yes; she was there all day.”
“Well, is she disagreeable? Does she interfere with you in any way?”
“In every way, mamma. At least I feel sure it is going to be in every way. She’s—she’s to be in my class for everything. She’s—it’s no good hiding the truth—she’s awfully clever and far on, and ahead of us all.”
Mrs Waldron’s face looked grave. She felt such sympathy with Charlotte that she was almost shocked at herself. She was only human! She had hoped that her child might be spared the special rivalry which she knew would touch her the most acutely.
“Are you not fanciful, dear? How can you possibly be sure in one day that Miss—what is her name?”
“Meredon, mamma. Claudia Meredon—isn’t it a lovely name?” said Charlotte with a rather curious smile. “Even her name is uncommon and beautiful.” Mrs Waldron could not help laughing.
“You are going too far, my dear child. I am sure your own name is quite nice enough. You have no reason to be ashamed of it.”
“Ashamed of it! no, mamma,” said Charlotte with heightened colour. “It isn’t that.”
“But you are fanciful, dear, about Miss Meredon. How can you be sure in one day that she is going to distance you in all your lessons?”
“She will do so in German, any way,” said Charlotte gloomily, “and that is almost the worst of all. Oh, mamma, if you had heard Herr Märklestatter to-day! Just out of contradiction I got an extra difficult piece to translate, and I stumbled over it rather, I know. At another time I wouldn’t have minded, and he wouldn’t have minded. But to-day—”
“He wanted you to show off before the new girl of course, and very likely you did too, and that made you worse,” said Jerry bluntly.
“Perhaps,” Charlotte agreed. “But oh, mamma, you would have been sorry for me,” and her voice broke.
“I am sorry for you, my dear. It is a battle you have to fight. But you must be brave—about your lessons; you knowweknow you always do your best. That should keep you happy.”
Charlotte gave a deep sigh. But before she left the room she stooped and kissed her mother.
“Thank you, mamma,” she said.
Jerry followed her to the school-room.
“Jerry,” she said, as she sat down and spread out her books, “I must have had a sort of feeling that this girl was to do me harm. It is not true that things are even—she haseverything, you see. The worst of it is, that I almost believe she is good.”
“Charlotte!” exclaimed Jerry.
“Yes, it sounds awful, but you know what I mean. It makes it horrider of me to hate her, and I’m afraid I do. At least if she gets the German prize—the one he gives for composition at the end of the term—I shall.”
“Shall what?”
“Hate her,” said Charlotte, grimly.
Jerry said no more.
Had Claudia Meredon “everything?”
Charlotte would assuredly have thought so more firmly than ever had she seen her at the moment when she was thus speaking of her. She was driving up the Silverthorns avenue in the pretty pony-carriage which Lady Mildred had appropriated to her use. It was a chilly evening, and the rain had been falling by heavy fits and starts all day. Miss Meredon was well wrapped up, however, and she drove fast. Her cheeks were glowing with excitement, and even in that most unbecoming of attire, a waterproof cloak, she looked, as Charlotte had almost bitterly allowed, “lovely.” Her bright hair crept out in little wavy curls from under her black hat, her eyes were sparkling—she looked a picture of happiness.
“Don’t ring,” she said quickly to the groom, as she threw him the reins, “I’ll let myself in,” and she was out of the carriage and up the steps in a moment.
The great front door was fastened from within, but Claudia ran round the terrace to a side entrance which she knew she should find open. And without waiting to take off even her waterproof, she flew down a passage, across the large hall, and into a smaller one, on to which opened the drawing-room where Lady Mildred usually sat when alone.
“She cannot but be pleased,” thought the girl; “and if I am very quick, I may be able to write a word home to-night.”
She opened the door, and as she did so she seemed to bring in with her a gust of the fresh breezy autumn air. The lady who was reading by the fire, or possibly dozing, for the light was growing faint, started and shivered.
“Claudia,” she exclaimed, “for any sake, shut the door. How can you be so inconsiderate?”
Miss Meredon closed the door gently and came forward.
“Oh, Aunt Mildred, forgive me; I am so sorry,” she replied in her bright eager voice. “I was in such a hurry to tell you how capitally I have got on. I have been so happy. The school is delightful. And, aunt, only fancy—won’t mamma and all of them be pleased? The German master did so praise me! I am to be in the highest class, and—and—he said it would do the others good to have me with them. It’s not for myself I am so pleased—it’s for papa and mamma. And to think that I never had German lessons from any one but mamma.”
She ran on so eagerly that it would have been almost impossible to stop her. And when she at last came to a halt, out of breath, Lady Mildred did not at once speak. When she did her words were more chilling than silence.
“I do wish you were less impulsive and excitable, Claudia,” she said. “Of course I am pleased that you should take a good place, and all that; but I think it rather injudicious of the teachers to have begun praising you up so the first day. They would not have done so had you not been my niece. It is just what I was afraid of.”
“Aunt Mildred, I assure you the German master knew nothing about who I was. And I feel sure he wouldn’t have cared if he had known. And it was more he than any one. Miss Lloyd is nice, but—she isn’t at all gushing. She just told me quietly that so far as she could judge I should be in the highest classes, and—and that it was plain I had been very well taught.”
Lady Mildred looked up sharply.
“You did not—I hope,” she said, “you did not think it necessary to enlighten them as to who had been your teachers?”
“No,” said Claudia, “I did not, because you had told me not to do so. I don’t know in any case that I should have done so, aunt, for though you say I am so childish, I don’t feel inclined to tell everything to people I don’t know. Indeed I am not so silly, only—I couldn’t help running to tellyou, just—just as I would have done to mamma,” and Claudia’s voice quivered a little.
“Oh, well,” said her aunt, “don’t excite yourself about it. I am glad to see you have sense of your own—indeed, I always say you have if you would only think a little. But you must learn to be less impulsive—you know how entirely I forbid your making any friendships or intimacies among those girls. What are they like—pretty fair on the whole?”
“They were all very kind,” began Claudia.
“Kind, child! Don’t use such stupid words. Of course they will be all only too civil. That’s not the question. What sort of girls do they seem?”
“Some seem very nice indeed,” replied Miss Meredon. “The nicest looking of all, indeed she is rather a peculiarly pretty girl—I never saw any one quite like her, except—no, I don’t remember who it can be she reminds me of. She has quite dark brown hair, and a rather brown complexion, prettily brown, you know, and yet bright blue eyes. Her name is Charlotte Waldron.”
“Humph!” said Lady Mildred, “like her father.” She was not fond of Mr Waldron’s very “Osbert” characteristics, though she scarcely allowed even to herself that he had any traceable connection with the Silverthorns’ family.
“Oh, do you know them?” exclaimed Claudia, joyfully. “I felt sure when I saw her that you could not object—”
“Nonsense, Claudia,” Lady Mildred interrupted. “Her father is the Wortherham lawyer, oraWortherham lawyer; no doubt there are plenty of them. And I should rather more object, if possible, to your making friends with this girl than with any others of the Wortherham misses. Mr Waldron has some little of the Silverthorns business, and I won’t have any gossiping about my affairs. You know the understanding on which you came to me?”
“Of course I do, dear aunt,” Claudia replied. “I wish you would not think because I say out to you whatever I feel that I haveanyidea of going against your wishes. I only meant that this girl looked so—it sounds rather vulgar to express it so, but it is the only way to say it—she looks so completely a lady that I thought you would probably not mind my knowing her a little better than the others. I fancy we shall be together in most of our lessons.”
“So much the worse,” thought Lady Mildred. “It is really very unlucky. I had no idea that Edward Waldron had a daughter old enough to be at school.”
But aloud, after a moment’s silence, she remarked with a slight touch of sarcasm in her tone,—
“So Miss Waldron also is a remarkably talented young person. She must be so if she is to rank with you, I suppose.”
“Aunt Mildred!” exclaimed Claudia. In her place most girls of her age, Charlotte Waldron certainly, would have burst into tears, or left the room in indignation, but this was fortunately not Claudia’s “way.” She forced back the momentary feeling of irritation, and answered brightly: “I know you are only teasing me, Aunt Mildred. You don’t really think me so dreadfully conceited?”
Even Lady Mildred could not help relaxing.
“You are very sweet-tempered, my dear, whatever else you are or are not, and it is the best of all gifts.” She sighed as she spoke.
“Now you will make me blush,” said Claudia merrily.
“And was this Miss Waldron very ‘kind,’ as you call it—very ‘empressée,’ and all the rest of it?” Lady Mildred asked.
“No-o,” answered Claudia, hesitating a little; “I can’t say that she was. Her manner is rather cold and reserved, but there is something very nice about her. I am sure she would be very nice if one knew her better. Perhaps she is shy. I think that gave me the feeling of wishing to be nice to her,” she added naïvely.
”‘Nice’ in the sense of being civil and courteous, of course you must be. I trust you are quite incapable of being otherwise. And it is the most ill-bred and vulgar idea to suppose that the right way of keeping people in their places is by beingrudeto them. That at once puts onebeneaththem. But, on the other hand, that is a very different thing from rushing into school-girl intimacies and bosom friendships, which I cannot have.”
“I know,” said Claudia, but though she sighed a little it was inaudibly. “Aunt Mildred,” she began again, half-timidly.
“Well?”
“Has the letter-bag gone? Can I possibly write to mamma to-night?”
“The post-bag has not gone, I believe,” said Lady Mildred. “No doubt you can write. I suppose you are in a fever to report the German master’s compliments—if you think it amiable and considerate to leave your old aunt alone when she has been alone all day, instead of making tea for her and sitting talking with her comfortably. But of course you very intellectual young ladies now-a-days think such small attentions to old people quite beneath you. You will prefer to write in your own room, I suppose—you have a fire. I will send you up some tea if you wish it. May I trouble you to ring the bell?” But as Claudia, without speaking, came forward to do so, Lady Mildred gave a little scream.
“Good gracious, child, you haven’t taken off your waterproof, and you have been standing beside me all this time with that soakingly wet cloak. If you are determined to kill yourself I object to your killing me too.”
“It is scarcely wet, aunt,” said Claudia, gently. “But I am very sorry all the same,” and she left the room as she spoke.
“Why do I constantly vex her?” she said to herself, despairingly. “I must be very stupid and clumsy. I do so want to please her, as papa and mamma said, not only because she is so good to us, but even more, because she is so lonely—poor Aunt Mildred. Of course my letter can wait till to-morrow. Oh, I know what I’ll do—I’ll beveryquiet, and I’ll creep into the drawing-room behind Ball with the tea-tray, and Aunt Mildred will not know I’m there.”
And the smiles returned to Claudia’s face as she flew up-stairs and along the gallery to her room. Such a pretty, comfortable room as it was! A bright fire burned in the grate, her writing-table stood temptingly ready. Claudia would dearly have liked to have sat down there and then, to rejoice the home hearts with her good news. For they, as well as she, had been awaiting rather anxiously the results of her measuring her forces against those of her compeers. So much depended on the opinion of qualified and impartial judges as to her capacities; for, as her mother had said laughingly,—
“It may be the old story of our thinking our goose a swan, you know, dear.”
Yes, it would have been delightful to write off at once—a day sooner than they had been expecting to hear. But the very sight of her room confirmed the girl in not yielding to the temptation, for it recalled Lady Mildred’s constant though undemonstrative kindness.
“No doubt it was she who told the servants to keep the fire up for fear I should be cold,” she thought. “Dear me, how very good she is to me. How I wish mamma, and Lalage, and Alix, and all of them, for that matter, could see me here really like a little princess! But oh! how I wish I could send some of all this luxury to them—if I could but send dear mamma a fire inherroom to-night! They won’t even be allowing themselves one in the drawing-room yet—they’ll all be sitting together in the study. Monday evening, poor papa’s holiday evening, as he calls it.”
All the time she was thus thinking she was taking off her things as fast as possible. In two minutes she was ready, her hair in order, the rebellious curls in their place, her collar, and all the little details of her dress fit to stand the scrutiny of even Lady Mildred’s sharp eyes; and as she flew down-stairs again, she met, as she had counted upon, the footman carrying in the tea-tray. The drawing-room was quite dark now, as far as light from outside was concerned, and Lady Mildred’s lamp left the corners in shadow. It was easy for Claudia to slip in unperceived, for her aunt was not expecting her, and did not even raise her eyes when the door opened, and the slight clatter that always accompanies cups and saucers announced the arrival of the tea.
“Tell Crossley to come in a few minutes to take Miss Meredon’s tea up-stairs,” said Lady Mildred, not knowing that the footman had already left the room, and that the movements she still heard were made by Claudia, safely ensconced behind the tray, and laughing quietly to herself. In another minute a voice close beside her made the old lady start.
“Aunt Mildred,” it said, “here is your tea.”
“Claudia!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were up-stairs in your room.”
“Selfishly writing my letter home! Oh, aunt! how could you think I would be so horrid! My letter will do very well to-morrow. I did not think it was so near tea-time when I thoughtlessly spoke of it. Do you think I don’t enjoy making tea for you?—almost the only thing I can do for you,” said the girl with a kind of affectionate reproach.
Lady Mildred was silent for a few moments. Then she said again, with a tone in her voice which was not often heard,—
“Claudia, you have the best of gifts—a sweet and sunny nature. Try to keep it, my dear.”
And Claudia felt rewarded.
She sat up in her own room that night for half-an-hour to write the home letter.
“Mamma would forgive my doing so for once,” she said to herself, “for I may not have time to-morrow. If I am really to do well at school I must work hard, and it will not be easy to do so, and yet to please Aunt Mildred. But I don’t mind how difficult it is—it will be worth it all to be able to help them at home without being separated. But oh, mamma, mamma! it is very hard to be away from you all!”
And Claudia leant her head on the table and burst into tears.
Chapter Six.Claudia’s Home.The Rectory at Britton-Garnett was one of those picturesque, tempting-looking, old cottage-like houses which, seen in summer by a passer-by, embowered in greenery and roses, remain in the memory as a sort of little earthly paradise. And its inhabitants, who loved it well in spite of its imperfections, would have accepted the verdict without much protest.“It is a sweet little place,” Mrs Meredon would say, “and for rich people it might really be made almost perfect. But with these old houses, you see, there seems always something that wants doing or repairing. The roof is in a very bad state, and we are sometimes very much afraid that there is dry-rot in the old wainscoting.”But the roof had to be patched up, and the incipient dry-rot had to be left to itself. Mr Meredon was far too poor to spend a shilling or even a sixpence that he could possibly help; and as the house was his own private property,—for what had been the Rectory was a very small house in the village, quite out of the question as the abode of a large family,—there was no one to appeal to for necessary repairs, as is usually the case. The Rectory proper was, in point of fact, large enough for the living, which was a very small one. Long ago now, when the Meredons first came there, shortly after their marriage, it had been with the idea that Britton-Garnett was but the stepping-stone to better things. But years had gone on without the better things coming, and now for some considerable time past the Rector had left off hoping that they ever would, or that he could be able conscientiously to accept them should they do so. For a terrible misfortune had come over him, literally to darken his life. He had grown almost totally blind.It had been softened to some extent by a very slow and gradual approach. The sufferer himself, and his wife and elder children, had had time to prepare for it, and to make their account with it. There was even now a good hope that, with great care and prudence, the glimmering of sight that remained to him might be preserved; that the disease had, so to speak, done its worst. But adieu to all prospects of a more active career, of the wide-spread usefulness and distinction Mr Meredon had sometimes dreamt of, of “the better things,” in the practical sense even, that he had hoped for, when he and his light-hearted and talented but portionless young bride had, like so many thousands of others in fact and fiction, “so very imprudently married.” It was even harder in some ways than if the poor man had become completely blind, for then there would have been nothing more to fear, no use in precautions or care.“Sometimes I could wish it had been so,” he once confessed to his wife. “I don’t know but that it would have been easier for you all.”“Easier foryou, perhaps, dear Basil,” said his wife. “But for us—oh no! Think what it would be for you not to know the children’s faces as they grow up, not to—”“The loss would be mine in all that,” interrupted Mr Meredon.“But, papa dear, it would bemuchmore trouble for us if we had always to trot about with you, if you couldn’t go anywhere alone. We should have to get a little dog for you—or else I should have to leave off my lessons and my music and everything to go everywhere with you. No, you are a very selfish old man to wish to be quite blind,” said Claudia gaily. “I like you much better as you are.”“I should not see how thin your mother’s face is growing. I can see that. The grey hairs—if they are coming—I can’t see as it is.”“Nor can I—for the very good reason that there are none to see,” Claudia replied.There were several children—all younger, considerably younger than Claudia, and the two next her were girls. So for the moment the family cares were not so heavy as in the future they would assuredly be, when the little boys’ schooling would have to be thought of, and college, or starting them in the world, beyond that again. Mr Meredon was the younger son of a large family. All that he could hope for had been done for him, and the seniors of his family were not rich men for their position.“There is only Aunt Mildred,” he said more than once to his wife: “she is alone now, and she used to be fond of me.”“Till you married,” said Mrs Meredon. “And—it is not exactly as if her money was Meredon money. She only has it for life, has she not?”“Yes, only for her life; and she has, by her husband’s instructions, to keep up the place in such perfect order,—besides its being temporarily rather heavily burdened,—that she is really not very rich in ready money. General Osbert, the next owner, will be better off than she. Still, if she could see us, she might do something for the children. Anything would be something—even helping Claudia’s education.”“That would be almost the best help she could give us,” said Mrs Meredon, eagerly. “Claudia is, I feel almost certain, unusually clever, and—you must not be vexed, Basil—an idea has struck me, her and me I should say, which would make things easier in the future. If Claudia could have the chance of some really first-rate teaching for a couple of years or so, she would then be eighteen, and she might turn her knowledge to account.”“You mean by becoming a governess?” said Mr Meredon. “I doubt if Aunt Mildred would give any help towards such an end as that.”“No, I don’t mean a governess in the ordinary way. But in the first place she could teach Lalage and Alix, and the boys too for some time to come. And besides that, I quite think she could have other pupils. Mrs Carteret has been speaking to me about her three girls—they are quite little still, you know, but in a year or two she will have to arrange something. Of course they are not the sort of people to send their girls to school; but, on the other hand, she is very averse to having a resident governess, as their house is already so full. She almost said to me that they would gladly pay as much as to a resident governess if they could meet with any lady in the neighbourhood who could undertake to give the children daily lessons. And Mr Fade, I rather fancy he would be delighted to join in any plan of the kind. He wants companionship for Sydney, and yet he would certainly never send her to school.”“So we should have a select establishment for young ladies here,” said Mr Meredon, half amused, half incredulous. “I doubt if the Meredon prejudices would not be even more shocked by that than if Claudia became a governess.”“I don’t think so; besides, we can’t afford to consider that. Our circumstances are very peculiar. We must do what we can for ourselves. And Claudia is a very exceptional girl.”“Yes, I allow that. But would such a scheme not entail too much fatigue and work for her? She will be very young even at eighteen. And no teacher can teach everything.”“No; but if it were arranged, Claudia and I are sure that both the Carterets and Mr Fade would join to have one or two masters once a week or so from Curwen. Claudia could superintend the preparation for them, and I, of course, would give what help I could if it were in this house. But most likely Mrs Carteret would wish the lessons to be there. There would be an advantage in that, for it would leave me more time for reading and writing with you.”Mr Meredon was silent for a little.“That would be a very great comfort,” he said at last, “and possibly even more. I can’t bear to take up your time just now, when you have all the teaching to do; but if you were freer I might perhaps go on with some of the work I had in hand when my eyes first got so bad. I could dictate to you,” and Mr Meredon looked up eagerly.But the brighter expression soon faded.“I am afraid,” he said, “we are reckoning on our chickens not only before they are hatched, but before we have got any eggs! In the first place, Mrs Carteret may not think Claudia fit for it. No man is a prophet in his own country—and you see they have known her since she was a baby.”Mrs Meredon smiled.“I will ask Mrs Carteret about it,” she said.“And then the two years’ schooling for her. Where is that to come from?” he asked.“Ah! thatisthe question. Well, Basil, I love our independence as much as you do, but with this prospect of steady and remunerative employment for her, I think we should swallow our false pride,—it surely would be false pride in such a case,—and ask Lady Mildred to help us. It would not be asking much, or burdening her for long.”“I will think it over,” Mr Meredon replied, “and you perhaps had better sound Mrs Carteret, and, if you like, Mr Fade also.”Perhaps Mrs Meredon had already done so. Be that as it may, the results were satisfactory. And a few days later the letter on which hung so many hopes was written by his wife to Mr Meredon’s dictation.“And now,” she said wisely, “we have done what we could. Let us try in the mean time to put the matter off our minds.”Their patience, however, was not so taxed as often happens in such cases. Nor was the answer what they had expected. How seldom, how strangely seldomareexpectations realised! If ever in the long run things turn out as we have anticipated, the details of their fulfilment are so curiously unlike what we had pictured that we scarcely recognise them. Mrs Meredon and Claudia, the blind father too probably, had lain awake many an hour reading in imagination Lady Mildred’s reply. Would it be curt and cold, at once negativing all hopes, or condescendingly benevolent, or simply kind and kinswomanlike? The last, after so many years, and after too her expressed disapproval of her nephew’s marriage, was scarcely to be hoped for. It was none of all these, for in the shape of a letter her answer never came at all.But one late August afternoon, about a month before the rainy Saturday when Charlotte and Gervais Waldron sat discussing the expected “new girl” at Miss Lloyd’s, the nameless heiress of Silverthorns, the old fly from Welby, the Britton-Garnett railway station, turned in at the Rectory gate and slowly crawled up the drive, already slushy with early autumn rains and want of rolling,—for carriage wheels were rare at the Meredons’—and in answer to the scared little maid’s information that “missus was at home,” a tall, upright old lady in deep mourning descended, and was ushered into the drawing-room. It was empty. She had time to look about her—to note the shabby furniture, the scrupulous care with which the carpet, faded though it was, was covered to protect it from the sun, the darned curtains looped up so as to show to the best advantage, the one real ornament of the room, a lovely nosegay of roses, freshly cut and fragrant, placed so as to make a bright spot where most wanted.“Yes,” she decided, “there has been no exaggeration. They are very poor, but they are not degraded by it. They have kept up their self-respect.”But she was scarcely prepared for the vision that met her eyes when, an instant later, the door opening made her turn round.It was Claudia—Claudia in a little washed-out cotton frock, which might once have been blue, with snowy collar and cuffs, and a rosebud at her throat, her lovely hair fluttering over her forehead, her hazel eyes raised in half-perplexed inquiry,—Claudia, the most exquisite picture of girlhood that Lady Mildred’s gaze had ever rested on.She half started forward to meet the child; but Claudia was absorbed in her commission, and did not notice it.“Mamma is very sorry,” she began, “she—she has been busy writing for papa. She will be here in a moment. Can you kindly tell me your name—and is there anything I can say to mamma for you?”“My dear, yes. Tell her not to hurry; I can wait. Tell her and your father that I am Aunt Mildred, and that I have come to spend the day with them if they will have me. And before you run away, can you not kiss your old aunt?”“Of course, of course. I had no idea it was you, dear aunt,” said Claudia. “How strange of me not to guess, and we so often speak of you!”“You knew that your mother, or perhaps I should say your father, wrote to me lately?” asked Lady Mildred.“Yes,” said Claudia simply, “I knew all about it. And oh! I am so glad you have come. It is ever so much better than a letter.”“She is lovely and good, I feel sure, and I should imagine clever, like her mother,” thought Lady Mildred. “What a pity it seems! But they are right—their idea is infinitely better than making a governess of such a girl, even if she were not a Meredon.”And the result of that August day that Lady Mildred Osbert spent with her nephew and his family was, that a fortnight later Claudia Meredon was installed at Silverthorns.Lady Mildred, when free from prejudice, could do things both kindly and sensibly, though nevertheless “in her own way.”“I cannot do much for you,” she said to her nephew and his wife; “but I am heartily sorry for you,—I had no idea Basil’s eyes were so bad,—and what I can do I will. I am not so rich as is generally thought.”“That I know,” Mr Meredon interrupted.“Yes, I have always wished my own family to know it. As for the Osberts, time enough for them to know it when I am dead. It is no love for them that actuates me, but my determination to carry out my husband’s wishes. Thanks to this, the property will be all but unencumbered again when it leaves my hands. But this state of things cripples me. However, that is no one’s concern but my own. Of all things I hate gossip, so I keep my own counsel. Now as to Claudia—I should like, I tell you frankly, to get some personal gratification out of what I do. I have taken a great fancy to the child. Suppose you let me have her for the two years, instead of sending her away to school—I hate girls’ schools, by the way, even the best of them. But I have made inquiry, and I find that at Wortherham, near me, she could have excellent teaching. There is asortof school there, a day school only, for some of the girls of the place, which is most highly spoken of—the principal of it, Miss Lloyd, is very capable herself, and has first-rate teachers to help her. If Claudia attended these classes she could live with me and cheer me up a little. I am very lonely. The two years may see the end of me—”“Don’t say that, Aunt Mildred,” Mr Meredon interrupted; “it makes me feel as if I should have done something—written to you, or had some communication with you before. Has it been false pride?”“Perhaps,” said Lady Mildred, bluntly. “I was not cordial about your marriage. You know it, my dear,” she added, turning to Mrs Meredon. “But it was no ill-feeling to you personally. And as things are—well, I see plainly that Basil could not have a better wife.”“Thank you for saying so,” said Mrs Meredon simply.“And let me say I think your plan for Claudia a delightful one.”“But I have more to explain,” Lady Mildred went on. “I like doing things in my own way. If she comes to me it must not be in the guise of a poor relation. I won’t have all the old women in Wortherham,—dreadful radical place, that it is,—nor my county neighbours either, for that matter, gossiping about the poverty-stricken Meredons. Every one knows the Meredons are poor, but let us keep all details to ourselves. Claudia must not let any one at this school know anything about her motives for studying as hard as I am sure she will do; and she must not overdo it. She is well advanced already, you say?”“I hope so,” said the mother. “But it is difficult to judge till one compares her with others. In French and German I am sure she will stand well.”“Yes, I know she could not have had a better teacher than you.”“I had unusual advantages myself certainly,” said Mrs Meredon, who had been many years in France and Germany.Lady Mildred nodded her head without speaking. She had the greatest belief in her niece’s ability, and with good reason.“Well, then,” she said, “we may consider it settled. I shall meet Claudia in London a week hence and see to a ‘trousseau’ for her, so give yourself no trouble on that head. You can explain to her all I have said. She will understand why I do not wish her to make friendships with any of the Wortherham girls whom she will be thrown with?”“She will thoroughly understand that she is to follow your wishes ineverything,” said Mrs Meredon. “But I must warn you that she is a very sociable child—the world seems to her a very much more delightful place than to most of us, for somehow she always manages to see the best side of people.”“I hope she will see the best side of me then,” said Lady Mildred, rather grimly; “for I am a cantankerous old woman, and too old now to change. Claudia had better rub up her rose-coloured spectacles before she comes my way.”And so, a fortnight later saw Lady Mildred’s grand-niece installed as the child of the house at Silverthorns, or, according to the local wiseacres who there, as everywhere, knew more of their neighbours’ affairs than the neighbours themselves, as “her ladyship’s adopted daughter, heiress to Silverthorns, and all the great accumulation of Osbert wealth.”And certainly the girl’s sunny face and bright bearing gave some colour to Charlotte Waldron’s belief that Claudia Meredon was one of those favoured human beings “who haveeverything!”
The Rectory at Britton-Garnett was one of those picturesque, tempting-looking, old cottage-like houses which, seen in summer by a passer-by, embowered in greenery and roses, remain in the memory as a sort of little earthly paradise. And its inhabitants, who loved it well in spite of its imperfections, would have accepted the verdict without much protest.
“It is a sweet little place,” Mrs Meredon would say, “and for rich people it might really be made almost perfect. But with these old houses, you see, there seems always something that wants doing or repairing. The roof is in a very bad state, and we are sometimes very much afraid that there is dry-rot in the old wainscoting.”
But the roof had to be patched up, and the incipient dry-rot had to be left to itself. Mr Meredon was far too poor to spend a shilling or even a sixpence that he could possibly help; and as the house was his own private property,—for what had been the Rectory was a very small house in the village, quite out of the question as the abode of a large family,—there was no one to appeal to for necessary repairs, as is usually the case. The Rectory proper was, in point of fact, large enough for the living, which was a very small one. Long ago now, when the Meredons first came there, shortly after their marriage, it had been with the idea that Britton-Garnett was but the stepping-stone to better things. But years had gone on without the better things coming, and now for some considerable time past the Rector had left off hoping that they ever would, or that he could be able conscientiously to accept them should they do so. For a terrible misfortune had come over him, literally to darken his life. He had grown almost totally blind.
It had been softened to some extent by a very slow and gradual approach. The sufferer himself, and his wife and elder children, had had time to prepare for it, and to make their account with it. There was even now a good hope that, with great care and prudence, the glimmering of sight that remained to him might be preserved; that the disease had, so to speak, done its worst. But adieu to all prospects of a more active career, of the wide-spread usefulness and distinction Mr Meredon had sometimes dreamt of, of “the better things,” in the practical sense even, that he had hoped for, when he and his light-hearted and talented but portionless young bride had, like so many thousands of others in fact and fiction, “so very imprudently married.” It was even harder in some ways than if the poor man had become completely blind, for then there would have been nothing more to fear, no use in precautions or care.
“Sometimes I could wish it had been so,” he once confessed to his wife. “I don’t know but that it would have been easier for you all.”
“Easier foryou, perhaps, dear Basil,” said his wife. “But for us—oh no! Think what it would be for you not to know the children’s faces as they grow up, not to—”
“The loss would be mine in all that,” interrupted Mr Meredon.
“But, papa dear, it would bemuchmore trouble for us if we had always to trot about with you, if you couldn’t go anywhere alone. We should have to get a little dog for you—or else I should have to leave off my lessons and my music and everything to go everywhere with you. No, you are a very selfish old man to wish to be quite blind,” said Claudia gaily. “I like you much better as you are.”
“I should not see how thin your mother’s face is growing. I can see that. The grey hairs—if they are coming—I can’t see as it is.”
“Nor can I—for the very good reason that there are none to see,” Claudia replied.
There were several children—all younger, considerably younger than Claudia, and the two next her were girls. So for the moment the family cares were not so heavy as in the future they would assuredly be, when the little boys’ schooling would have to be thought of, and college, or starting them in the world, beyond that again. Mr Meredon was the younger son of a large family. All that he could hope for had been done for him, and the seniors of his family were not rich men for their position.
“There is only Aunt Mildred,” he said more than once to his wife: “she is alone now, and she used to be fond of me.”
“Till you married,” said Mrs Meredon. “And—it is not exactly as if her money was Meredon money. She only has it for life, has she not?”
“Yes, only for her life; and she has, by her husband’s instructions, to keep up the place in such perfect order,—besides its being temporarily rather heavily burdened,—that she is really not very rich in ready money. General Osbert, the next owner, will be better off than she. Still, if she could see us, she might do something for the children. Anything would be something—even helping Claudia’s education.”
“That would be almost the best help she could give us,” said Mrs Meredon, eagerly. “Claudia is, I feel almost certain, unusually clever, and—you must not be vexed, Basil—an idea has struck me, her and me I should say, which would make things easier in the future. If Claudia could have the chance of some really first-rate teaching for a couple of years or so, she would then be eighteen, and she might turn her knowledge to account.”
“You mean by becoming a governess?” said Mr Meredon. “I doubt if Aunt Mildred would give any help towards such an end as that.”
“No, I don’t mean a governess in the ordinary way. But in the first place she could teach Lalage and Alix, and the boys too for some time to come. And besides that, I quite think she could have other pupils. Mrs Carteret has been speaking to me about her three girls—they are quite little still, you know, but in a year or two she will have to arrange something. Of course they are not the sort of people to send their girls to school; but, on the other hand, she is very averse to having a resident governess, as their house is already so full. She almost said to me that they would gladly pay as much as to a resident governess if they could meet with any lady in the neighbourhood who could undertake to give the children daily lessons. And Mr Fade, I rather fancy he would be delighted to join in any plan of the kind. He wants companionship for Sydney, and yet he would certainly never send her to school.”
“So we should have a select establishment for young ladies here,” said Mr Meredon, half amused, half incredulous. “I doubt if the Meredon prejudices would not be even more shocked by that than if Claudia became a governess.”
“I don’t think so; besides, we can’t afford to consider that. Our circumstances are very peculiar. We must do what we can for ourselves. And Claudia is a very exceptional girl.”
“Yes, I allow that. But would such a scheme not entail too much fatigue and work for her? She will be very young even at eighteen. And no teacher can teach everything.”
“No; but if it were arranged, Claudia and I are sure that both the Carterets and Mr Fade would join to have one or two masters once a week or so from Curwen. Claudia could superintend the preparation for them, and I, of course, would give what help I could if it were in this house. But most likely Mrs Carteret would wish the lessons to be there. There would be an advantage in that, for it would leave me more time for reading and writing with you.”
Mr Meredon was silent for a little.
“That would be a very great comfort,” he said at last, “and possibly even more. I can’t bear to take up your time just now, when you have all the teaching to do; but if you were freer I might perhaps go on with some of the work I had in hand when my eyes first got so bad. I could dictate to you,” and Mr Meredon looked up eagerly.
But the brighter expression soon faded.
“I am afraid,” he said, “we are reckoning on our chickens not only before they are hatched, but before we have got any eggs! In the first place, Mrs Carteret may not think Claudia fit for it. No man is a prophet in his own country—and you see they have known her since she was a baby.”
Mrs Meredon smiled.
“I will ask Mrs Carteret about it,” she said.
“And then the two years’ schooling for her. Where is that to come from?” he asked.
“Ah! thatisthe question. Well, Basil, I love our independence as much as you do, but with this prospect of steady and remunerative employment for her, I think we should swallow our false pride,—it surely would be false pride in such a case,—and ask Lady Mildred to help us. It would not be asking much, or burdening her for long.”
“I will think it over,” Mr Meredon replied, “and you perhaps had better sound Mrs Carteret, and, if you like, Mr Fade also.”
Perhaps Mrs Meredon had already done so. Be that as it may, the results were satisfactory. And a few days later the letter on which hung so many hopes was written by his wife to Mr Meredon’s dictation.
“And now,” she said wisely, “we have done what we could. Let us try in the mean time to put the matter off our minds.”
Their patience, however, was not so taxed as often happens in such cases. Nor was the answer what they had expected. How seldom, how strangely seldomareexpectations realised! If ever in the long run things turn out as we have anticipated, the details of their fulfilment are so curiously unlike what we had pictured that we scarcely recognise them. Mrs Meredon and Claudia, the blind father too probably, had lain awake many an hour reading in imagination Lady Mildred’s reply. Would it be curt and cold, at once negativing all hopes, or condescendingly benevolent, or simply kind and kinswomanlike? The last, after so many years, and after too her expressed disapproval of her nephew’s marriage, was scarcely to be hoped for. It was none of all these, for in the shape of a letter her answer never came at all.
But one late August afternoon, about a month before the rainy Saturday when Charlotte and Gervais Waldron sat discussing the expected “new girl” at Miss Lloyd’s, the nameless heiress of Silverthorns, the old fly from Welby, the Britton-Garnett railway station, turned in at the Rectory gate and slowly crawled up the drive, already slushy with early autumn rains and want of rolling,—for carriage wheels were rare at the Meredons’—and in answer to the scared little maid’s information that “missus was at home,” a tall, upright old lady in deep mourning descended, and was ushered into the drawing-room. It was empty. She had time to look about her—to note the shabby furniture, the scrupulous care with which the carpet, faded though it was, was covered to protect it from the sun, the darned curtains looped up so as to show to the best advantage, the one real ornament of the room, a lovely nosegay of roses, freshly cut and fragrant, placed so as to make a bright spot where most wanted.
“Yes,” she decided, “there has been no exaggeration. They are very poor, but they are not degraded by it. They have kept up their self-respect.”
But she was scarcely prepared for the vision that met her eyes when, an instant later, the door opening made her turn round.
It was Claudia—Claudia in a little washed-out cotton frock, which might once have been blue, with snowy collar and cuffs, and a rosebud at her throat, her lovely hair fluttering over her forehead, her hazel eyes raised in half-perplexed inquiry,—Claudia, the most exquisite picture of girlhood that Lady Mildred’s gaze had ever rested on.
She half started forward to meet the child; but Claudia was absorbed in her commission, and did not notice it.
“Mamma is very sorry,” she began, “she—she has been busy writing for papa. She will be here in a moment. Can you kindly tell me your name—and is there anything I can say to mamma for you?”
“My dear, yes. Tell her not to hurry; I can wait. Tell her and your father that I am Aunt Mildred, and that I have come to spend the day with them if they will have me. And before you run away, can you not kiss your old aunt?”
“Of course, of course. I had no idea it was you, dear aunt,” said Claudia. “How strange of me not to guess, and we so often speak of you!”
“You knew that your mother, or perhaps I should say your father, wrote to me lately?” asked Lady Mildred.
“Yes,” said Claudia simply, “I knew all about it. And oh! I am so glad you have come. It is ever so much better than a letter.”
“She is lovely and good, I feel sure, and I should imagine clever, like her mother,” thought Lady Mildred. “What a pity it seems! But they are right—their idea is infinitely better than making a governess of such a girl, even if she were not a Meredon.”
And the result of that August day that Lady Mildred Osbert spent with her nephew and his family was, that a fortnight later Claudia Meredon was installed at Silverthorns.
Lady Mildred, when free from prejudice, could do things both kindly and sensibly, though nevertheless “in her own way.”
“I cannot do much for you,” she said to her nephew and his wife; “but I am heartily sorry for you,—I had no idea Basil’s eyes were so bad,—and what I can do I will. I am not so rich as is generally thought.”
“That I know,” Mr Meredon interrupted.
“Yes, I have always wished my own family to know it. As for the Osberts, time enough for them to know it when I am dead. It is no love for them that actuates me, but my determination to carry out my husband’s wishes. Thanks to this, the property will be all but unencumbered again when it leaves my hands. But this state of things cripples me. However, that is no one’s concern but my own. Of all things I hate gossip, so I keep my own counsel. Now as to Claudia—I should like, I tell you frankly, to get some personal gratification out of what I do. I have taken a great fancy to the child. Suppose you let me have her for the two years, instead of sending her away to school—I hate girls’ schools, by the way, even the best of them. But I have made inquiry, and I find that at Wortherham, near me, she could have excellent teaching. There is asortof school there, a day school only, for some of the girls of the place, which is most highly spoken of—the principal of it, Miss Lloyd, is very capable herself, and has first-rate teachers to help her. If Claudia attended these classes she could live with me and cheer me up a little. I am very lonely. The two years may see the end of me—”
“Don’t say that, Aunt Mildred,” Mr Meredon interrupted; “it makes me feel as if I should have done something—written to you, or had some communication with you before. Has it been false pride?”
“Perhaps,” said Lady Mildred, bluntly. “I was not cordial about your marriage. You know it, my dear,” she added, turning to Mrs Meredon. “But it was no ill-feeling to you personally. And as things are—well, I see plainly that Basil could not have a better wife.”
“Thank you for saying so,” said Mrs Meredon simply.
“And let me say I think your plan for Claudia a delightful one.”
“But I have more to explain,” Lady Mildred went on. “I like doing things in my own way. If she comes to me it must not be in the guise of a poor relation. I won’t have all the old women in Wortherham,—dreadful radical place, that it is,—nor my county neighbours either, for that matter, gossiping about the poverty-stricken Meredons. Every one knows the Meredons are poor, but let us keep all details to ourselves. Claudia must not let any one at this school know anything about her motives for studying as hard as I am sure she will do; and she must not overdo it. She is well advanced already, you say?”
“I hope so,” said the mother. “But it is difficult to judge till one compares her with others. In French and German I am sure she will stand well.”
“Yes, I know she could not have had a better teacher than you.”
“I had unusual advantages myself certainly,” said Mrs Meredon, who had been many years in France and Germany.
Lady Mildred nodded her head without speaking. She had the greatest belief in her niece’s ability, and with good reason.
“Well, then,” she said, “we may consider it settled. I shall meet Claudia in London a week hence and see to a ‘trousseau’ for her, so give yourself no trouble on that head. You can explain to her all I have said. She will understand why I do not wish her to make friendships with any of the Wortherham girls whom she will be thrown with?”
“She will thoroughly understand that she is to follow your wishes ineverything,” said Mrs Meredon. “But I must warn you that she is a very sociable child—the world seems to her a very much more delightful place than to most of us, for somehow she always manages to see the best side of people.”
“I hope she will see the best side of me then,” said Lady Mildred, rather grimly; “for I am a cantankerous old woman, and too old now to change. Claudia had better rub up her rose-coloured spectacles before she comes my way.”
And so, a fortnight later saw Lady Mildred’s grand-niece installed as the child of the house at Silverthorns, or, according to the local wiseacres who there, as everywhere, knew more of their neighbours’ affairs than the neighbours themselves, as “her ladyship’s adopted daughter, heiress to Silverthorns, and all the great accumulation of Osbert wealth.”
And certainly the girl’s sunny face and bright bearing gave some colour to Charlotte Waldron’s belief that Claudia Meredon was one of those favoured human beings “who haveeverything!”