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Chapter Sixteen
Claudia’s Victory
It seemed more like a dream than ever the next day.
“I can’t understand how I took it so quietly,” Charlotte thought to herself as she was dressing. “I suppose I was half stunned. I feel this morning as if I could just scream with delight. To think of Silverthorns coming to be our home – our own beautiful home. And how I have grumbled, and how jealous I have been of her. I don’t suppose she could ever quite understand – nobody who has never been poor themselves can. But, oh, I shall try to be kind and sympathising to others. It makes me feel as I used to when I was little, sometimes, when mamma saw I was cross and discontented, and instead of speaking sharply she would do some kind thing to make me feel happy. I wonder if God sometimes makes people good that way? For I know I haven’t deserved it, though dear papa, and mamma, and Arthur, and Jerry have. Oh, to think I may tell Jerry!”
The telling Jerry was more easily managed than she had anticipated. The boy’s instincts were sharpened by illness, and he had never forgotten the impression of his strange experiences at Silverthorns.
“I knew it, Charlotte,” he exclaimed, his blue eyes gleaming, “I knew it. When I was told that, about the ghost only coming to some of the family, and I remembered papa’s having heard it too, something seemed to tell me that we had to do with Silverthorns, and that more would come: I knew it, Charlotte. And she will be so pleased – Claudia, I mean.”
“You think she will be?” Charlotte said, rather surprised.
“Of course; I know she will be,” he said confidently; “you’ll see. And, of course, it will be ever so much nicer for her when she’s there, to have us living near. I’ll get to know her so well this winter, staying with them at that place. Oh, I say, I’m awfully glad to think of going there, and to know it won’t cost papa and mamma anything. I do so want to get well, Charlotte. I may say it now – I’ve really felt as if I never would lately, and almost as if I didn’t somehow much care.”
“Jerry!” Charlotte exclaimed.
“Yes; and that’s the queerest feeling of all. I suppose people have it when they’re really going to die, and that it’s a good thing. It must make it not so bad,” the boy went on.
“But you don’t feel that way now?” Charlotte asked anxiously.
“No, I feel quite different. It was partly, you know – ” and Jerry hesitated – “the horrible feeling of being such a worry and such an expense to papa and mamma. I’ve thought often lately,” and the boy looked before him wistfully – “Charlotte,” he broke off, “isn’t it queer how things bring things to your mind? There’s a corner of one of the window-panes there that’s cracked; I see it every morning when I wake, and I always wonder when it will break away, and there’ll have to be a new pane. And then some proverb about cracked things lasting the longest comes into my mind, and I begin thinking perhaps I shall last an awfully long time, and then I worry about what a lot I shall cost them, and perhaps never be able to earn anything. And that’s what’s made me think sometimes lately that it would be better if I died.”
“But, Jerry,” Charlotte repeated; she spoke very quietly, for she was dreadfully afraid of beginning to cry; “you don’t need to feel that now. Now you can try to take advantage of all your chances for getting well without any worry to spoil it.”
“Yes; that’s what I’m so thankful for. Oh, I am so thankful!” he said fervently. “And, Charlotte,” he added very gravely, “there’s another thing I’m glad of, very glad of – the poor ghost will be able to rest now.”
Charlotte jumped up and clapped her hands. In her state of suppressed excitement one mood rapidly followed another, and it was better to laugh than to cry! But Jerry did not join in her merriment.
“Don’t, Charlotte,” he said, “I’m not joking. I’ve thought of him lately in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, and I have felt so sorry for him. So sorry that if I had heard him again I would have spoken to him, I am sure. Can you fancy anything more terrible than to have to wander about, – never resting, with no home, and no power of doing any good, or undoing any harm, – for years and years and years? I think it’s quite as dreadful a punishment as any one could imagine, and I think, perhaps, if people believed in that kind of ghosts a little, it wouldn’t do them any harm.”
“But, supposing it’s true even,” said Charlotte, “the poor old thing’s at rest now.”
“Yes, I think so; I do hope he’ll be able to be at peace. For, after all, he has tried to tell how sorry he was, and to put things right,” said Jerry, with a sigh of relief.
He was weak and tired all that day, but it was scarcely, perhaps, to be wondered at. And the night following he slept soundly, and awoke refreshed; and when Dr Lewis saw him he expressed his conviction that the boy would be quite able to stand the journey in a week’s time. And it was with one anxiety the less on his overburdened professional shoulders that the good doctor left the Waldrons’ house that morning.
“It will save the boy, there is no doubt of it,” he said to himself. “And I know no one more deserving of good fortune than Waldron,” for Jerry’s father had thought it right to take his old friend to some extent into his confidence. “Dear me! – to think that he should be the next in the Silverthorns succession! I knew there was some connection, but I thought it a much more remote one.”
Surprises seemed to be the order of the day at Norfolk Terrace. Some day within the week, during which, preparations for Jerry’s journey went on busily, came a letter with a foreign post-mark, addressed to Charlotte. She started a little when she saw the writing.
“From Claudia Meredon,” she half whispered to herself; “she must be writing about Jerry, I suppose.”
But when she drew out the letter she saw that it was rather a long one. “The boys” were all about, and Charlotte knew that quiet was not to be expected in such circumstances. So she took the letter off to her own room to read in peace. The first few words surprised her.
“My dear Charlotte,” it began, – whereas hitherto Claudia’s one or two little notes had been formally addressed to “Dear Miss Waldron,” – “Aunt Mildred tells me I may call you by your first name as she says we must each think of the other as a sort of cousin now, so I hope you will not mind it. I have been longing to tell you how happy I was to hear all that has come to pass. It is, of course, very sad for General Osbert and his family, but they have never really seemed like relations to Aunt Mildred, and I do not think they have ever cared much about dear Silverthorns. It is delightful to think that it is going to be your father’s some day, and indeed it will seem like his almost at once, as Aunt Mildred is longing for him to take charge of things. I do so want to see you. I want to explain to you many things that I have never been able to tell. I know you must have thought me strange and unfriendly, and I want you to know how difficult it was. Aunt Mildred will not mind my telling you everything now. She wants us to be friends, and this brings me to what I want especially to write about.”
And then followed a proposal which made Charlotte’s face flush with pleasure, and her eyes beam.
“Oh, how delightful it would be,” she whispered. “Oh, will papa and mamma let me?”
And scarcely waiting to finish the letter she flew to her mother in such a state of breathless excitement that Mrs Waldron scarcely recognised her quiet self-contained little daughter.
“It is very, very kind,” she said, when she had read what Charlotte eagerly pointed out.
“And may I go? Do you think papa would let me?” she exclaimed. “Oh, mamma, I would work so hard at French and music. You see Claudia says I could join in her lessons.”
“We must wait till your father comes home,” said Mrs Waldron. “But I should like it for you very much indeed.”
Mr Waldron had had a letter too – from Lady Mildred herself. She wrote earnestly begging her newly acknowledged cousin to bring his daughter, as well as Jerry, for a two or three months’ visit to her at Cannes.
“I beg you not to let the expense be any difficulty,” she said. “There are long arrears due to you which I can, alas, only indirectly make up. And I am most anxious, peculiarly so, that my dear little niece, Claudia Meredon, should make friends with your children. She will be speaking of this plan in more detail in her letter to your daughter.”
So it was decided, and a few days later Mr Waldron, accompanied by his two children, started for Cannes.
Jerry bore the journey fairly well, but he was very exhausted before they got to its end, and his father was thankful that Charlotte was with them. Some little time of anxiety about him followed, and he required much care and nursing to bring him round, though the doctor assured them that there was no serious cause for alarm and much for congratulation that the move southwards had not been delayed.
“I doubt if he would have stood it a few weeks hence,” said he. “He was evidently losing instead of gaining strength every day in England. But you will see a great change in a little while.”
And in the mean time Jerry’s illness had one good effect. It drew the two girls together as nothing else could have done, and made the Waldrons feel more quickly and thoroughly at home with Lady Mildred than would otherwise have been the case. For her real kindness of heart came to the front at such times, and all her stiffness and “frighteningness” vanished.
One day – one lovely day, when it was difficult to believe it was only February, and that up there in the north in poor, grey old England, the rain and the fogs, or the snow, perhaps, were having it all their own way – a little group was enjoying the sunshine on one of the pleasant terrace walks above the sea. There was Jerry in an invalid-chair still, but looking as if he would soon be independent of anything of the kind, and beside him his two constant girl-attendants. Suddenly one of them started forward.
“Claudia,” she said, “I see papa; he is coming our way. Would you mind my running to meet him? I do so want to talk to him a little. He will so soon be going now, and I have scarcely seen him alone for so many days.”
“Of course,” Claudia replied. “Jerry and I will be perfectly happy. Don’t hurry, Charlotte.”
And in another minute Charlotte was beside her father, her two hands clasped on his arm.
“Well, my gipsy?” he said.
“Oh, papa, I have so much to say to you, and you are going so soon,” she replied.
“And I have been so busy since Jerry got better that my little girl is beginning to think I am forgetting her – is that your new trouble? Remember, I never agreed with you in the old days, when it seemed to you that if a good many ‘ifs’ were realised, there would be no such thing as a trouble left.”
“Papa,” said Charlotte reproachfully; “I’m not making troubles. I’m never going to do so – it would be too ungrateful. I suppose, as you say so, they must come some time or other, but just now, with Jerry better and all, it’s difficult to think of them. You haven’t any, have you, dear papa?”
“No, my dear; I have so much good to be grateful for, that, as you say, it is difficult to think of anything but sunshine. Everything is going on satisfactorily.”
“You have seen General Osbert again, papa, since the poor son’s death?” asked Charlotte; for the younger Mr Osbert had died a few days after the Waldrons arrived.
“Yes, poor old man; he and Lady Mildred are quite at one about everything, and of course I am only too glad to carry out her wishes. One thing I am glad of, and that is that I shall have plenty to do, Charlotte. I could not have endured a life of even comparative idleness.”
“Papa dear,” Charlotte went on, “it is most of all about Claudia I want to speak to you. I cannot tell you how I feel about her. Do you know, papa, I could not have been like her if our places had been reversed? Just think, she is really as happy for us as if we were her own family. I don’t believe it has once come into her mind, even the very least little bit, to wish any of it were coming to them.”
“She is a most sweet and noble girl,” said Mr Waldron.
“And, papa, to think of all she has told me – of how horribly I misunderstood her. To think how poor they are, and of her father’s blindness, and how they have struggled, and all that Claudia has done – not that she seems to think she has ever done anything. I sometimes can’t bear to think of the feelings I had,” and Charlotte’s honest eyes filled with tears.
“It was not altogether your fault,” said her father consolingly.
“Yes, papa; the horrid feelings were,” said Charlotte firmly. “But do you know it is Claudia’s happiness that makes me the most ashamed. She does not know – you said when you first understood about her, you remember, that it would hurt her for me to say too much about how I misjudged her? – she does not know half, and she thinks it was all because she dared not be frank and companionable at school. And she says she is so happy now that we are friends that it was the only thing wanting, and that she is the luckiest girl in the world. And after all, papa, the happiness she is so looking forward to, of working hard and earning, not many would think it a very delightful future, would they? Oh, papa, she is so good.”
“And so she is to be envied after all. Has she not ‘everything’ in the best sense, gipsy dear?”
“And we will always be her dearest friends, won’t we, papa? Afterwards – when – when Lady Mildred is dead, though I don’t like to speak of it, you will be rich enough to help them in many ways that they would not mind, won’t you, papa?”
Mr Waldron’s eyes looked very bright as he turned to Charlotte.
“I have been saying to Lady Mildred that nothing she can ask of me would give me greater pleasure than the being allowed now, or in the future, to be of use to the Meredons. Even were they less to be admired and respected than they are, it would be my place. And for Claudia herself, I am like you, Charlotte, I can’t say what I feel about her. I can only say I am most thankful for you to have such a friend.”
“I’m only dreadfully afraid, papa, that now I am learning to love her so, I shall not see much more of her. Lady Mildred is already talking of perhaps not returning to England all this year – of going to Germany in the summer, and back here again next winter. She says her mind is at peace about Silverthorns now, and that she means to have some holidays. And I mustn’t stay away from home very long, papa. Mamma could never manage the removal to Silverthorns, to the Old Lodge, I mean, without me,” she added importantly; “though I shall be dreadfully sorry to leave Claudia, and Lady Mildred too.”
“But think how very delightful it will be to be installed at the Old Lodge when they do come back, and to be able to give them a sort of welcome home.”
“And, papa, Claudia must always come to us for holidays even when she is settled at her own home, unless she is with Lady Mildred. And Jerry and I were planning we might ask one or two of the little ones to come with her each time, so that she wouldn’t feel she was leaving them all with her mother. Though Mrs Meredon isn’t quite so badly off as mamma, the next girl is past twelve, and our little girls are so tiny. But I think we must go on to Claudia and Jerry, papa. They want to see something of you, too, before you go. Oh, papa, how lovely it is here!”
And her eyes seemed as if they would never be tired of gazing at the perfection of sky and sea – at the blue glory one must leave our cold northern shores far behind ever to see.
“Yes,” said Mr Waldron, “it is very, very beautiful. But there are chilly and dull days here too, Charlotte. It is not always such sunshine and brilliance.”
“And even if it were, one would wish for home in a while,” the girl replied. “When the spring comes.”
“Yes —
”‘Oh, to be in England Now that April’s there,’” quoted her father. “Well, I hope we shall be all together there before April goes at any rate.”
And so saying they rejoined the others.
Charlotte’s misgivings that Lady Mildred would not return home for some length of time were realised. The old lady, who had not left England for many years, greatly enjoyed another taste of foreign travel, of which in her youth she had had much. Her mind was more at ease than it had been since her husband’s death as to the management of the property, and she also felt that she was conferring real and lasting benefits on Claudia. But some months before the two years during which her grand-niece was to be her charge, had expired, a sort of home-sickness came over them both.
“I think we won’t spend another Christmas away from England, Claudia,” she said rather suddenly one day. “I have a yearning to see Silverthorns again. And I know the Waldrons will never feel thoroughly at home till I am there myself. I must get to know Amy, and I want to see my pet Jerry again, and Charlotte too. And you will like to feel near your own people again, eh, my dear?”
“Yes, Aunt Mildred. It will be very nice, very nice,” said Claudia.
“Another Christmas if all’s well – if I’m still with you all, that’s to say,” pursued Lady Mildred, “we must have the house full. I must have you all over with me. But this year of course I must devote myself more particularly to Edward’s wife and children. And in that you will be a great help to me, you and Charlotte being already such friends.”
“She says – they say,” said Claudia laughing, “that I’m to spend all my holidays there – that’s to say when you don’t invite me. They are so very kind to me, really as if they were relations of my own. And some people in their place, Aunt Mildred, might not have been so cordial to me. I do think it’s delightful that your relations on the other side should be so nice. How beautifully things have turned out for us ever since that day you came down to Britton-Garnett! I do think I must have been born under a lucky star.”
And as she looked up with her sweet bright face and sunny eyes, Lady Mildred could not help agreeing with her.
“Yes, my dear, good child,” she said; “I think indeed some very beneficent fairy godmother must have been at your christening. You have some gifts you scarcely realise – the gift of bringing sunshine into other lives for one.”
“Auntie dear,” said Claudia, almost startled, for never was woman less demonstrative than Lady Mildred; “you are too good to me. I can do so little, and everybody is so kind to me. Auntie dear,” she went on timidly; “have I really brought a little sunshine to you?”
Lady Mildred smiled and stroked the girl’s soft hair as Claudia knelt down beside her; and though she did not speak, her niece was more than satisfied.
And no more was ever heard of the owls in the tower room at Silverthorns.
