Silverthorns

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 for _you_, 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 be _much_ more 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! that _is_ the 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 seldom _are_ expectations 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 a _sort_ of 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 in _everything_," 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 have _everything_!"

CHAPTER SEVEN.

MISUNDERSTOOD.

Claudia's success in the German class was, as Charlotte had expected, but the first of her triumphs. She had natural abilities of the first order; she had been excellently and most carefully taught, with the close individual attention and sympathy which no teacher can give in such perfection as a parent, rare though the parents may be who are fitted to teach their own children! And joined to these advantages she had the most intense desire to learn, not merely from her innate love of knowledge, but from the even nobler motive of wishing to help her parents. So that it was not to be wondered at that by the end of the first week Miss Lloyd, who had been requested by Lady Mildred to let her know her opinion of her new pupil, sent to Silverthorns a most satisfactory report. For Miss Lloyd was honest to the backbone.

"Miss Meredon will make good progress, I have not the least doubt," she wrote; "but it is only fair to say that the credit will be mostly due to her own application and to the teachers who have already so thoroughly taught her how to learn."

Lady Mildred showed Claudia the letter.

"It will not make _you_ vain," she said, "for it is your mother it praises, not you. Miss Lloyd must be a straightforward sort of person; most schoolmistresses try to make out that their pupils know nothing when they go to them, and learn everything with them. Does she ever cross-question you as to who those teachers of yours were?"

"No," said Claudia. "She asked me--or perhaps it was the French governess--if I had ever been abroad, and I said no, and then I think I said I had always been taught at home."

"And the other pupils--do they seem inquisitive either?"

Claudia hesitated.

"I don't think they are more so than any girls would be," she said. "I--I don't tell them anything, and of course they are accustomed to being very friendly and communicative with each other. I think they are all nice girls. The one I like the best--she and I do nearly all the same lessons--is Charlotte Waldron. At least I think I could like her if I knew her; but--"

"But what? You are not going to begin pestering me to let you make friends with her--her especially--I told you I don't like her family," said Lady Mildred irritably.

"Oh no, aunt, I was only going to say, I don't know that she likes me," said Claudia. "She is a very cold girl, except with some few whom she seems to know well."

"Well, I hope you are cold to her in return," replied her aunt, though as she glanced at the bright eager face beside her, it was difficult to associate it with the word.

"I try to do as you wish--as mamma explained," said Claudia gently. "One thing I am sure of, Aunt Mildred, and that is that they all think me the very happiest girl in the world. And I almost think I am."

She stooped to kiss Lady Mildred as she spoke, and then ran off.

She had not forgotten to bring her rose-coloured spectacles with her, that was certain. And it was well for her that it was so. There were difficulties in her present life that her mother had feared, but that Claudia herself in her innocence was as yet but very vaguely conscious of. She was scrupulously anxious to follow her aunt's directions as to her behaviour to her companions, but to one so open-hearted and genial it was not easy to be only coldly courteous and always self-restrained. And the struggle gave her a curious sort of timidity and uncertainty of manner which was not perhaps without its charm, but made it difficult to understand her, even for those who cared to exercise any observation and discrimination.

"How do you like her, Charlotte? I do wish you would tell me?" asked Gueda Knox one day, about a month after Miss Meredon's advent.

"I don't want to speak about her; I hate gossip," said Charlotte impatiently.

"I'm not asking you to gossip," Gueda replied. "I really want to know. I think you might tell me; it can do no harm, as I am going away almost immediately," for the Knox family, all excepting the vicar himself, were obliged to spend fully half the year in the south of France for Mrs Knox's health.

"That's just the worst of it," Charlotte replied impatiently. "If you hadn't been going away I would not have minded so much, but without you I shall be thrown more and more with her."