Mrs Molesworth (continued 3)

“Very well. I’m sure you’re welcome to come, as far as I’m concerned,” said Arthur. “You must be ready at one, sharp.”

“I couldn’t have gone in any case,” said Charlotte. “We are to have an extra French lesson to-morrow—recitations, and it won’t be over till two.”

“What a sell,” observed Ted, “and on a half-holiday.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Charlotte.

“No, I dare say not,” replied Ted. “You’ll go off your head some fine day, Charlotte, or paralyse your brain or something, if you work and fuss at lessons like that.”

“Well, I may be thankful that I shall have one brother sane enough to act as my keeper, if working at one’s lessons is what sends people out of their minds,” said Charlotte cuttingly.

Ted looked at her, opened his mouth as if about to speak, but shut it up again. He was no match for Charlotte in this kind of warfare, and indeed he was not quite sure if she were making fun of him or not. All the others burst out laughing, and Ted’s discomfiture might have led to some family discord had not Mrs Waldron at that moment entered the room. Arthur, with the laudable intention of diverting the storm, turned to her.

“Jerry wants to go out to see the skating to-morrow, mother,” he said. “You don’t mind his coming? We are to get a lift one way.”

Mrs Waldron looked pleased.

“No, of course not. I am very glad for him to go,” she said. And she patted Jerry’s head as she passed him, but the boy shrank away a little from the caress.

“Mamma thinks I want to go to amuse myself,” he thought. “Nobody really cares about poor Charlotte except me.”

It seemed colder than ever the next day, and there was a leaden look in the sky which told of snow not very far from falling. But it would certainly hold off till night, if not for another day or two, said Ted, who prided himself, and with some reason, on his weather wisdom.

“Wrap up well, Jerry,” said his mother, as she saw the boys preparing to start, “and don’t be very late. I should like you all to be home for the school-room tea. Perhaps I’ll have it with you, as your father will not be back till late for dinner. Charlotte will enjoy being all together at tea, as she will have no holiday scarcely.”

“When will she be home, mamma?” asked Jerry.

“About half-past two. All her class are staying later to-day.”

Mounted in the dog-cart among his brothers, Jerry set to work with calculations which they little suspected.

“It will take us three-quarters of an hour to get to the pond,” he thought. “She will be leaving Miss Lloyd’s about a quarter past two; say it takes her an hour to Silverthorns—she’ll go slower than we in this weather, I should think. Well, say only three-quarters—she’ll be near the first lodge by three, and it will take me about ten minutes from the pond. So I can stay there till a quarter to three or so—quite long enough; and I’ll tell them all then that I don’t want to stay longer. And if I don’t meet her I don’t much care—I’ll just go up to the house and say I want to see Miss Meredon. I won’t go home without having done it, or done what I could, that is to say.”

But all this preoccupation of mind did not render him a very lively companion.

“I can’t think what Jerry comes for if he’s so glum,” grumbled Ted. And Arthur’s warning “leave him alone” had to be several times repeated to secure the drive to the skating-ground ending in peace.

Things fell out much as Gervais had anticipated. He stood about the edge of the pond, with some other non-performing spectators, for three-quarters of an hour or so patiently enough. It was a pretty sight; notwithstanding his absorption in other things, he could not but own this to himself, and he felt pride in his tall, strong brothers, who were among the most agile and graceful of the skaters present. And now and then, when one or other of the three achieved some especially difficult or intricate feat, Jerry’s pale face flushed with pleasure and excitement.

“How I wish I were like them!” he said to himself, as some of Charlotte’s revilings against the unfairness of “fate” returned to his mind. And with the recollection returned also that of the real object of his joining in the excursion. He looked at his watch, a pretty little silver one which his father had given him a year ago, when he was only twelve years old, though his elder and stronger brothers had had to wait till they were fifteen for theirs,—were there not some compensations in your fate, Jerry?—and saw that it was fully half-past two. Time enough yet, but he was really getting chilled with standing about, and he was growing fidgety too. He had felt braver about it all in the distance, now he began to say to himself, how very much easier it would be to speak to the girl in the road than to have to march up to the house and ask for her formally, and he felt as if every moment was lessening the chance of his meeting her. Just then Arthur came skimming by. Jerry made a sign to him, and Arthur, always kind and good-natured, especially to his youngest brother, wheeled round and pulled up.

“What is it, Jeremiah?” he said. “You look rather lugubrious—you’re not too cold, are you?”

“Yes,” said Jerry, not noticing in his nervous eagerness to get away, Arthur’s half-bantering tone, which he might otherwise have resented; “I am horribly cold. I don’t want to stay any longer. I just wanted to tell you I was going, so that you’d know.”

“All right,” Arthur replied; “you’re sure it won’t be too far for you, and you don’t mind going alone?”

“Of course not,” said Jerry, already turning to go. But with an “I say, Jerry,” Arthur wheeled back again. “It’s looking awfully heavy over there,” he said, pointing to the slate-blue darkness of the sky towards the north; “they say it’s sure to snow before night. Make the best of your way home. You know the shortest way—the footpath over the stile just beyond the ‘Jolly Thrashers’?”

Jerry nodded. Truth to tell, he had but a vague idea of it, but he could ask—and he must be off.

“Or,” said Arthur, making Jerry nearly stamp with impatience, “perhaps, after all, you’d better keep to the high road. There’s a strong chance of your falling in with Sam—he won’t have got back yet.”

“All right, all right,” Jerry called back, and then he set off at the nearest approach to a run his poor stiffened knee could achieve.

He looked at his watch as he ran—only twenty-five minutes to three! barely five minutes since he had signalled to Arthur! Jerry relaxed his speed—it was scarcely possible that Miss Meredon was near Silverthorns yet.

He walked on quietly, past the second entrance, and along what from a certain corner was called the Wortherham road, till he came to the first Silverthorns lodge. Then he began to breathe more freely; “the girl,” as he always mentally dubbed her, could not enter the grounds now without his seeing her. He looked at his watch for the third time—seventeen minutes to three. Just about the time he had planned. She should be here soon if she had left Miss Lloyd’s a little after two.

But he had been walking up and down the short stretch of road between the so-called first lodge and the next corner fully twenty minutes before at last the sound of wheels reached him clearly through the frosty air, though still at some distance. Hitherto he had not gone beyond the corner—it would have made him feel more nervous somehow to look all along the great bare road; but now he gathered up his courage and walked briskly on. He was still cold, and beginning to feel tired too, but new vigour seemed to come to him when at last he was able to distinguish that the approaching vehicle was a pony-carriage, and the Silverthorns one no doubt; not that he knew it, or the pony, or the driver by sight, but it was not very likely that any other would be coming that way just at that time.

Jerry stood by the side of the road, then he walked on a few steps, then waited again. The sound of the wheels drew nearer and nearer, and he heard too the tinkling of a bell on the pony’s neck. Then he distinguished that, as he expected, the carriage was driven by a lady, and then—it seemed to come up so fast, that in another moment it would have passed him like a flash had he not resolutely stepped forward a little on to the road, taking his cap off obtrusively as he did so.

“Miss—Miss Meredon,” he said in his thin, clear boy’s voice. “I beg your pardon.”

The pony slackened its pace, the girl glanced forward to where Jerry stood, with a slightly bewildered, inquiring look on her face.

“Yes,” she said. “Is there something wrong with the pony, or the harness, or anything?” forgetting that a mere passer-by stopping her out of good-nature to point out some little mishap would not have been likely to address her by name.

“No,” said the boy—quite a child he seemed to her, for thirteen-year-old Gervais was small and slight; “oh no, it’s nothing like that. It’s only that—you are Miss Meredon, aren’t you?” Claudia nodded. “I wanted to speak to you for a minute by yourself. I—I forgot about him,” he added in a lower tone, coming nearer her, so that the groom behind should not overhear him, which small piece of good breeding at once satisfied the girl that the little fellow was a “gentleman.” “I wouldn’t keep you for a moment. You don’t think me rude, I hope?” he went on anxiously, for one glance at the sweet, lovely face had made Jerry feel he would be very sorry indeed to be thought rude by its owner.

“Oh, no,” said the girl smiling; “I am only a little puzzled. You see I don’t even know who you are.”

But she began to throw aside the fur carriage rug as she spoke, as if preparing to get out to speak to him.

“I’m Ger—” he began. “My name’s Waldron. I’m Charlotte—you know Charlotte?—I’m her youngest brother.”

“Oh,” said Claudia, in a tone of enlightenment. And then she knew what had seemed familiar to her in the very blue eyes looking wistfully at her out of the pale, slightly freckled face, with its crown of short, thick, almost black hair. “You are a little like your sister,” she said, as she got out of the carriage, “and you are even more like your father.”

For in Charlotte’s eyes, as Claudia at least had seen them, there was none of the softness which kindliness gave to Mr Waldron’s, and anxious timidity at this moment to those of his little son.

“Oh, do you know papa?” said Jerry, with a mixture of interest and apprehension in his voice.

“I’ll speak to you in an instant,” said the girl, by this time on the footpath at Jerry’s side. “Hodges,” she went on to the groom, “take the pony home—it’s too cold to keep him about. And tell Ball, if her ladyship asks for me, to say I am walking up the drive and I’ll be in immediately.”

The man touched his hat and drove off.

“Now,” said Claudia, “we can talk in peace. You asked me if I knew your father,” she went on, speaking partly to set the boy at ease, for she saw he looked anxious and nervous. “No, I can’t say I know him. I only saw him once for a moment, but I thought he had the kindest eyes in the world. And when I first saw Char—your sister, I remembered his face again.”

“Yes,” said Jerry, gratified, but too anxious to rest there, “papa is as kind as he looks. I wish you could see mamma though! But it’s about Charlotte I want to speak to you. Miss Meredon, will you promise never to tell anybody you’ve seen me? I’ve planned it all on purpose—coming out here and waiting on the road to meet you. Will you promise me? I shall never tell any one.”

Claudia looked at the anxious little face.

“Won’t you trust me?” she said. “Tell me first what it is you want of me, and then—if I possibly can, and I dare say I can—I will promise you never to tell any one.”

Jerry looked up at her again.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ll tell you. It’s about the German prize. Charlotte is breaking her heart about it—I mean about knowing she won’t get it.”

Claudia’s face flushed.

“But how does she know she won’t get it?” she said. “It isn’t decided—the essays aren’t even given in yet. Mine is not more than half done.”

“I know—she’s working at hers now. She’s working awfully hard, though she has no hope. You are much cleverer; you’re cleverer at everything, she says, and especially German. But you can’t ever have worked harder than she’s done. I suppose you learnt German in Germany? Of course that leaves no chance for the others.”

He could not look at her now; he wanted to work himself up to a sort of indignation against her, and in sight of the candid face and gentle eyes he felt instinctively that it would not have been easy.

“No,” said Claudia, and her tone was colder; “I have never been in Germany in my life. I have been well taught, I know, but I too have worked hard.”

“Well, I dare say you have. I don’t mean to vex you, I don’t mean to be rude,” said poor Jerry; “but you are cleverer, you are much further on; and you knew a great deal more than the others before you came. There is a sort of unfairness about it, though I can’t put it rightly.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

Jerry gulped something down like a sob.

“I want you not to try for the prize,” he said. “I can’t think that if you are good and kind, as you seem, it would give you any pleasure to get it when it will break Charlotte’s heart.”

A crowd of feelings rushed through Claudia’s heart and brain. What had Charlotte ever been or done to her that she should care about her in this way? Why should she make this sacrifice for a girl who had not even attempted to hide her cold indifference, even dislike? Could the loss of the prize be sorer to Charlotte, or the gaining of it more delightful, than to her, Claudia? Was it even in the least probable that the other girl’s motives were as pure as she knew her own to be?

But as her glance fell on the anxious little face beside her these reflections gave way to others. It might be more to Charlotte Waldron and her family than she—Claudia—could understand. Charlotte had resented the idea that her education was to be turned to practical use, but yet, even if she were not intended to be a governess, her parents might have other plans for her. They certainly did not seem rich, and Claudia remembered hearing that they were a large family. It was in a softened tone that she again spoke to Jerry.

“I hardly see that my giving up trying for it would do what you want,” she said gently. “Your sister would probably be too proud to care for the prize if she thought she had gained it by my not trying.”

“Oh, of course you would have to manage not to seem to do it on purpose. I could trust you for that,” said Gervais naïvely, looking up at her with his blue eyes. “And,” he went on, “Charlotte is fair, though she’s proud. She doesn’t pretend that you’re not much cleverer and further on.”

“I haven’t contradicted you when you said that,” said Claudia; “but I don’t think that I am cleverer than she is. In German I have perhaps had unusually good teaching—that is all.”

“You will get the prize if you try, you know that,” Jerry persisted. “If you give up trying Charlotte will think it a piece of wonderful good fortune. But I don’t think she or any one could be very surprised. You have everything you want, why should you care to work extra for a prize like that? It isn’t as if you had been years at Miss Lloyd’s, like the others—and—and—cared about it like them. And the teachers think you too grand, to be vexed with you whatever you do.”

“Grand,” repeated Claudia, with a little laugh, but it was not a bitter one. “I only wish you all—” but she stopped. There was a good deal of truth in what Jerry said; she was only a new-comer, with scarcely a real right to enter the lists. And it was true too that she was free to retire without vexing any one, or involving others in her self-sacrifice. Lady Mildred would not care; her parents would, not improbably, take this boy’s view of the case. Self-sacrifice was the only one involved.

She turned and looked at Charlotte’s brother.

“Very well,” she said, “I promise to do as you wish. I cannot yet quite see how I shall manage it. You will not of course blame me if I find I cannot. I do promise you to do my best to get out of it, so that Charlotte shall have no rivals but her regular ones.”

Jerry looked up at her.

“Thank you,” he said, “thank you awfully. You are very good and—and kind. I wish Charlotte could know; but of course she never must. You’ll never tell anybody, will you?” he added.

“I’ll never tell any one by whom it could possibly come round to Charlotte,” she said. “And for some time to come I’ll not tell any one at all.”

“I’ll trust you,” said Jerry. “Now I must go. Oh but would you like me to walk up to the house with you?” he went on, with a sudden recollection of his “manners.”

“No, thank you,” said Claudia, secretly amused, for Jerry, though only three years younger, was about half her size; “oh no, thank you. You must get home as fast as you can.”

“That isn’t very fast,” said Jerry, “for I’m lame, you see,” and the child coloured painfully as he said it.

“And I believe it’s beginning to snow,” said Claudia, anxiously. “I do wish I could send you home somehow. Come up with me to the stables, and I’ll see what can be done.”

“Oh no, no, thank you,” said Jerry eagerly, for now that his great purpose was achieved, a nervous shyness was beginning to overpower him, and he felt only eager to get away. “I shall be all right. I’m going to meet our dog-cart down by the ‘Jolly Thrashers.’”

“You are sure?”

“Quite,” he repeated. “Good-bye, Miss Meredon, and thank you again, awfully.”

They shook hands, and the boy set off. Claudia stood watching him through the now fast falling snow.

“I hope he will be all right,” she said to herself as she turned towards the lodge gates.

Neither she nor Jerry had realised how long they had been talking. When Claudia went in she found Lady Mildred on the point of sending out to see if she had taken refuge at the lodge from the snow.

“I should have felt very unhappy about that poor boy if he had had any further to go than the ‘Thrashers,’” thought Claudia to herself more than once as the afternoon drew on into evening, and the snow fell so fast that one could not tell when the daylight really faded.

Chapter Eleven.

Sent by the Snow.

Claudia and her aunt were sitting quietly that same evening in the small drawing-room which Lady Mildred always used in the winter, and Claudia was thinking over her strange meeting with “the little Waldron boy,” as she called him to herself (for she did not even know his Christian name), and hoping he had got safe home, when her aunt looked up suddenly.

“How should you like to spend Christmas in London, Claudia? Would it seem very dreary to you?” she said.

“Oh no, Aunt Mildred, not if you wished it,” Claudia replied.

“I suppose the truth is, all places would seem much the same to you so long as they were not Britton-Garnett,” Lady Mildred observed, with a touch of acrimony in her tone. But Claudia understood her better now. She only smiled.

“I should not like to be there this Christmas, Aunt Mildred, if you were to be here alone. It would be awfully nice to be all together, of course, but it would be nicest if you were with us too.”

Lady Mildred sighed.

“I am afraid merry Christmasses are quite over for me. It is very dull here; it seems a sort of mockery for a poor old woman like me to be the centre of things, giving tenants’ dinners and school-feasts, and all the rest of it. I have not the heart for any up-stairs festivities,” and she sighed again. “After all, I dare say it would be less dreary in London. What has put it into my head is a letter from the lawyers saying that they may be wanting to see me on business.”

“Would you be going soon?” asked Claudia.

“I don’t know. It would not matter if you lost a week or two at school—you have been working hard lately.”

“No,” said Claudia, “it would not matter.” And the thought passed through her mind that if her aunt carried out this plan, it would remove all difficulties in the way of her not trying for the prize.

“No one would ever know that I meant to give it up at any rate,” she thought with a slight, a very slight touch of bitterness.

But at that moment the front door-bell rang violently. Both the ladies started.

“What can that be?” said Lady Mildred. “Not a telegram surely. Mr Miller would never think of sending a telegram on a Saturday evening, whatever the business may be that he wants to see me about.”

“Shall I run and see what it is,” said Claudia. For though there was a sound of voices and footsteps dimly in the distance, no servant appeared to explain matters.

“Yes, go,” Lady Mildred was saying, when the door opened and Ball, followed by a footman, appeared.

“If you please, my lady,” the butler began, “it’s Rush from the lodge. He begs pardon for ringing so loud at the front, but he thought it would be quicker. They’ve found a child, if you please, my lady, a boy, dead in the snow down the road. A farm-lad passing—the snow’s not so heavy now—found him and ran for Rush. But Mrs Rush is that frightened she’s lost her head, and their baby’s ill. So Rush thought he’d best come on here.”

A smothered cry broke from Claudia.

“Charlotte’s poor little brother,” she said.

But no one noticed her words. Lady Mildred had already started to her feet.

“Dead, do you say, Ball?” she exclaimed. “How do you know he is dead? He may be only unconscious.”

“That’s just it,” said Ball.

“Then don’t stand there like a couple of fools. You’re as bad as that silly Mrs Rush. Bring the poor child in at once—to the servants’ hall or the kitchen, or wherever there’s a good fire; I will come myself as soon as the front door is shut, I feel the cold even here,” and the old lady began to cough. “Claudia—” turning round, but Claudia was off already.

She met the little group in the front hall. There were Rush and another man carrying something between them, and several other persons seemed standing about or emerging from different doorways, for even the best of servants dearly love a sensation. Claudia for one instant turned her eyes away—she dreaded to recognise the thin little face, whose blue eyes had sought hers so appealingly but an hour or two ago. Then she chid herself for her weakness.

“Carry him at once into the kitchen,” she said. “Her ladyship wishes it.”

Her voice sounded authoritative, and was immediately obeyed. Some blankets appeared from somewhere in a mysterious manner, and in another minute the small figure was deposited upon them before the friendly glow of the fire, and Claudia knelt down to examine the child more closely. Her eyes filled with tears as she saw that it was indeed “the little Waldron boy.” But even at that moment she had presence of mind enough to respect his secret.

“I don’t know what is best to do,” she said appealingly. “He is not a country boy—do you see, he is a gentleman?” she added, as Ball’s wife, the housekeeper, hurried forward. “But surely, oh, surely he is not dead!”

He looked sufficiently like death to make every one hesitate to answer. He had seemed pale and delicate that afternoon, but in comparison with the ghastly colourlessness now, Claudia could have described him as then florid and rosy! His eyes were closed, his arm dropped loosely when Claudia lifted it, his breath, if indeed it were there, was inaudible.

“Let me get to him, missy, please,” said the housekeeper, “and all of you gaping there, just get you gone. Here’s my lady herself—she’ll send you to the right-about. Ball, heat some water, and mix a drop or two of brandy. Then we’ll undress him and get him to bed. The chintz room’s always aired. Martha, light the fire at once and put some hot-water bottles in the bed. Dead! no, no. Let my lady see him.”

The room was soon cleared of all but two or three. Then they undressed the boy, whose frozen, snow-covered clothes were now dripping wet, and rolled him in the blankets. And in a few minutes, thanks to the warmth, and the chafing and friction which Mrs Ball kept up, the first faint signs of returning life began to appear, and they got him to swallow a spoonful of brandy and water.

“Feel in his pockets, Claudia,” said Lady Mildred, “and see if there is any letter or paper to show who he is. His people must be in cruel anxiety.”

Claudia did so, feeling herself a sort of hypocrite for not at once telling all she knew. To her great relief she came upon a pocket-handkerchief marked “Waldron,” and a neat little memorandum-book, for poor Jerry was the most methodical of boys, with “Gervais Waldron, 19, Norfolk Terrace, Wortherham” on the first page.

“Aunt Mildred,” she said quietly, “it is one of the Waldrons—the lawyer’s children, you know. His sister is at school with me.”

Lady Mildred started, and made some little exclamation under her breath which Claudia did not catch.

“He is coming round nicely, my lady,” said Mrs Ball. “The doctor will think he need not have been fetched,” for a groom had already been sent to a village much nearer than Wortherham, where a doctor was to be found.

“It is better to let him see the boy,” said Lady Mildred. “He looks such a delicate child,” she added, speaking in a low voice, for Jerry was now opening his eyes, and showing signs of coming to life in every sense of the word.

“Shall we send to let his people know that he is safe?” said Claudia.

“I suppose so,” said Lady Mildred. “Tell Ball to send the groom on to Wortherham as soon as he comes back from Crowby. And—”

“Would it do for me to write a note? I could write it to the sister I know?” asked Claudia.

Lady Mildred hesitated.

“Yes,” she replied; “I dare say you might.”

“And, my lady,” said Mrs Ball, “I’ll have the young gentleman carried up-stairs and put to bed. It will be just as well for him to find himself there when he quite wakes up, as it were.”

Lady Mildred stooped again and looked at the boy closely. His eyes were closed. She saw nothing that struck her in the little thin pale face, for it was the blue eyes that were its one beauty—the very blue eyes characteristic of the Osberts.

“Very well. Come to the drawing-room, Claudia, and write the note. I should think the groom will be back directly. I will see the child again after the doctor has been.”

“Aunt Mildred is really kind,” thought Claudia. But she had to exercise considerable self-control during the writing of the note. She would have made it friendly and hearty in tone, but this did not suit Lady Mildred’s ideas at all, and it was a rather stiff and formal production when finished, ending with a half-permission, half-invitation to the boy’s parents to come and see him the next morning.

“My aunt feels sure the doctor will wish your brother to stay in bed all to-morrow,” wrote Claudia, “and he will be taken every care of. But should Mr and Mrs Waldron feel uneasy, she begs them not to hesitate to come to see him for themselves.”

The doctor came, and confirmed the good account of the patient which Mrs Ball had already sent down-stairs.

“He will take no harm I fancy,” he said. “But he is evidently a delicate child, and he has had a narrow escape. He would have been dead long before morning.”

“Does he seem frightened?” asked Lady Mildred.

“No,” the doctor replied. “I don’t think his nerves have suffered. He is still sleepy and confused, and of course he feels sore and aching. But he can remember nothing very distinctly, I fancy.”

“I will go up and see him,” said Lady Mildred. “It must be past dinner-time, Claudia. This affair has made the servants forget everything.”

The doctor took his leave, promising to look in again the next morning. Lady Mildred went up to the chintz room and Claudia ran after her.

“Mayn’t I come in and see him too, aunt,” she said; “I’d like to see him looking better. He did look so dreadful when they first brought him in,” and she gave a little shudder.

Jerry was looking very far from dreadful by this time; he was half-sitting up in bed, with more colour than usual on his face, his eyes very bright and blue. Lady Mildred’s face changed as she looked at him.

“I hope you are feeling better, my dear,” she said quietly. “The doctor is sure you will be quite well to-morrow.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Jerry. “I’m nearly quite well now, I think, except that I’m aching rather. If you please,” and he hesitated, “you don’t think I could go home to-night? I don’t know what o’clock it is—it isn’t the middle of the night, is it? Oh,” as Claudia just then came forward, “I—”

“This is my niece,” said Lady Mildred. “She was anxious to know how you were.”

Gervais looked up at Claudia, and a glance of understanding passed like lightning between them.

“I’m all right, thank you,” he said to her.

“How was it?” said Claudia. “Did you lose your way in the snow?”

“I suppose so,” said Jerry. “I was going along the road past the ‘Jolly Thrashers’ the last thing I remember. I thought I should have met our dog-cart, but I didn’t, and I walked on as fast as I could, but it snowed dreadfully heavily, and I got so tired I had to rest a little. I’m lame, you know,” he added, flushing a little. “I knew one should never go to sleep in the snow, and I only meant to rest a minute. But I suppose I went to sleep—I remember a very nice feeling coming over me, and then I don’t remember anything else.”

“Ah,” said Lady Mildred. “You have had a narrow escape, my dear.”

“I’m very sorry to have given you so much trouble,” Jerry went on penitently. “But if I could go home—they’ll all be so frightened.”

“Your going home to-night is out of the question, my dear,” said Lady Mildred; “but we have already sent a groom to tell your family that you are quite safe.”

“Thank you very much. I’m very sorry to have given you so much trouble,” Jerry repeated.

“Well, then, take care to give no one any more, by getting well as quickly as ever you can,” said Lady Mildred kindly. “Try to go to sleep, so that you may wake quite well in the morning. Good night, my dear.”

“Good night, Lady Mildred,” said the boy.

But Claudia, who had already learnt to know his face and its expressions, detected an uneasy look, and when her aunt had left the room she lingered a moment behind.

“Gervais,” she said,—“I know your name, you see—are you uncomfortable? Is there anything the matter—anything to do with what we were speaking of this afternoon?”

Jerry looked up wistfully.

“No,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll never tell any one—will you?”

“Oh, no; I will keep my promise exactly; and whenever I can do so without betraying you in the least, I will let Charlotte know that I am not going to try for the prize.”

“Thank you, oh, thank you so very much,” said Jerry fervently. “I know you will do it nicely.”

“It may be quite easy,” Claudia went on. “I am not sure but that we shall be going away very soon, and that I couldn’t try for it even if I wanted,” and she smiled a half-sad little smile.

“But I shall always know how good you were,” said Jerry, as if that should console her for all other misapprehension.

Claudia smiled again.

“Thank you,” she said; “and good night.”

But Jerry still fidgeted about.

“I am afraid I can’t go to sleep,” he said; “I am so aching all over, and it seems so strange. Isn’t this the chintz room?”

“Yes,” said Claudia, a little surprised. “How did you know it?”

“Oh, I—I heard the name,” he said. “Is it far away from everybody else’s rooms?”

“No; mine is very near. There is a swing door across the passage, and mine is the first door through it. But some one—Mrs Ball or some one—will sit up with you if you would the least like it.”

“No, no,” said Jerry. “I told them not to. I wouldn’t like it at all. Miss Meredon,” he went on, beginning to laugh, “don’t I look like Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, rather, with all these fussy things round my neck?”

Claudia burst out laughing too. She saw what made the child look so comical. He was enveloped in one of her own nightgowns with voluminous frills.

“Is it one of yours?” said Jerry gravely, tugging at the frills and solemnly regarding them. “I don’t like wearing girls’ things, but I don’t mind so much if it is yours.”

At this moment Mrs Ball returned.

“Miss Meredon, my dear,” she said, “the young gentleman must really go to sleep. My lady wouldn’t be pleased if she knew you were still here talking to him.”

“We couldn’t help laughing at the nightgown, Mrs Ball,” said Claudia. “It’s one of mine, isn’t it?”

“Yes, we made so bold. It was the nearest his size you see, missy dear.”

“Well, good night again, Gervais,” said Claudia as she left the room. “I do hope you will sleep well.” Jerry smiled back a good night. He seemed in better spirits now.

“Isn’t he a nice little fellow?” she could not help saying to Mrs Ball.

“And quite the little gentleman,” said the housekeeper. “But he seems delicate, poor child. Just to think of it—what a mercy that Stobbs’s boy was coming up that way, and that he had a lantern. For all that the snow had stopped, he’d have been dead before morning. I don’t like to think of it—at our very door, so to say, Miss Claudia, and us with no thought of it. But there—my lady’s just going down to dinner.”

Lady Mildred was very silent that evening. Her mind seemed full of many things, and Claudia, after one or two attempts at conversation, thought it best to give it up. Not very long after dinner the groom returned from Wortherham with a note addressed to Miss Meredon. He had found, so he informed his friends in the servants’ hall, the family at Norfolk Terrace in a fine taking about the boy.

“They were sending out in all directions,” he said. “The poor lady looked like dead, and the young ladies were crying fit to break their hearts. I never see such a sight. The other young gentlemen had been out skating on Gretham pond, and they thought as this one had got home hours before, as he should have done. I’m almost sure as it was he as stopped our young lady when we was a-driving home this afternoon.”

“Stopped our young lady!” exclaimed Ball in surprise.

“Oh, it was just some message about the school. The Waldron young ladies goes where Miss Meredon does,” said the groom. And as no more was said about the matter, Jerry’s and Claudia’s secret remained their own.

The note was from Charlotte. It scarcely bore traces of the agitation described by the groom.

“Dear Miss Meredon,” it began,— “My father and mother wish me to thank Lady Mildred most sincerely for her kindness to my brother Gervais. They also thank you for writing to tell us of his safety. We were becoming very uneasy about him. My father will go out early to-morrow, and hopes to be able to bring him home in a close carriage. He and my mother regret exceedingly the trouble all this must have caused you. “I remain,— “Yours sincerely,— “Charlotte Waldron.”

Claudia handed it to her aunt.

“Humph!” said Lady Mildred, “a very school-girl production, dictated by her papa and mamma, I suppose.”

“Not stiffer than mine was,” thought Claudia to herself.

“That little fellow up-stairs has something original about him. I have rather taken a fancy to him,” said Lady Mildred.

“Yes,” Claudia responded warmly; “I think he’s a dear little fellow.”

“But he can’t be the eldest son; there must be one nearly grown-up, I fancy,” said Lady Mildred, with a little sigh.

Claudia looked up. What was Lady Mildred thinking of? What could it matter to her, or to any one, or to themselves even, whether Gervais was eldest or youngest of the Waldrons? A country lawyer’s family heirs to nothing.

“Aunt Mildred must be half asleep,” thought Claudia. “She might as well talk as if it mattered which of us was the eldest.”

Chapter Twelve.

The Owls Recognise one of the Family.

It seemed late to Claudia when she went up to bed that night, though in reality it was not much past ten o’clock. But so much had happened since dark, and it had grown dark so early with the snow-storm, that it would have been easy to fancy it was already long past midnight.

Claudia went to the window and drew back one of the curtains. The snow overhead had quite disappeared, but down below, it lay like a carpet of white, glistening faintly in the moonlight.

“How cold it looks,” thought the girl with a little shiver, and Mrs Ball’s words returned to her. Yes, it was dreadful to think that but for what seemed a mere accident, Gervais Waldron would by this time have been lying dead under the snow. And had it been so, it seemed to Claudia that she would always have felt or fancied cause for self-blame.

“How thankful I am he is not the worse for it,” she said to herself. “Poor little fellow—I would have insisted on sending him home if he had not said he was to be met. He was so anxious to get away once he had achieved his purpose. He is very anxious still to get away. I wonder if he can go home to-morrow. I am afraid he is rather unhappy at having to stay here—all night. By the bye,” and Claudia started as a thought struck her, “I hope he has not heard anything about the haunted room, and all that story. It was curious that he knew the name of the chintz room. I dare say the story is gossiped about by some of the old people in the neighbourhood, and he may have heard it.”

She did not like to disturb him again, and she hoped that by this time he was fast asleep. But she went out of her room as far as the spring door, between the old and new parts of the house, near which, on opposite sides, were both her room and Jerry’s. She propped the door open with a chair, so that if the boy were by any chance afraid and came to look for her, he should at once see where he was. For a small lamp burned all night on a side-table on the large landing, and even a little light goes a long way when all around is darkness. And as she made her way back again, she glanced up the old staircase to where in the gloom was the door of the tower room.

“I wonder if the ghost is awake to-night,” she thought, half-laughingly. “I always seem to think of the story on moonlight nights—perhaps because it is then that one is tempted to look out of the window, and that reminds me of the view from the tower room, right down the drive.”

But she looked out of the window no more to-night. She was tired, and fell asleep almost immediately she got into bed.

Her dreams were, as might have been expected, somewhat disturbed and confused. She had kaleidoscope visions of herself and Charlotte and Jerry, and a snow-man shaking white flakes over them all, which, on close examination, proved to be leaves of an exercise-book, covered with the German prize essay. Then looking up to complain, she saw that the snow-man had turned into Herr Märklestatter, who was running after Lady Mildred with a very angry face, while Lady Mildred called for help, screaming out, “It is the ghost, it is the ghost.” Claudia half woke up, roused, as it seemed to her in her dream, by her aunt’s cries. But all was silent, and she turned round, half-smiling to herself sleepily at her foolish fancies, and was all but dreaming again, when again a sound something between a sob and a low wail, penetrated to her brain, this time effectually, for she started up, quite awake, and listened in the darkness.

She had not long to wait. A low sound, this time translatable into words, reached her ears.

“Miss Meredon! oh, Miss Meredon! are you there?” said a most doleful voice. And then came a sort of sob or groan of intense distress, the same sound as that which had awakened her.

A faint, very faint light came from the direction of the door, showing her that it was slightly open. For the light could only come from the little lamp on the landing outside. But Claudia had a candle and matches on a table close at hand.

“Who is it? what is it?” she exclaimed, trembling a little in spite of herself, while she struck a match.

“It’s me, it’s only me,” was the answer. “I’m so ashamed. I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope you won’t think me very rude for waking you up, but I’m so dreadfully frightened. There’s been some one or something crying and sobbing for such a time near my room. I tried to think it was my fancy, or the wind, or the owls, as papa said. But at last I couldn’t bear it. I’m almost sure it must be the ghost.”

And by the candle which Claudia had succeeded in lighting, a queer, grotesque, but most pitiful little object revealed itself. It was Jerry of course—standing there with his poor white face, looking almost as pallid as when they had drawn him out of the snow the evening before, his blue eyes feverishly dark and bright, Claudia’s nightgown a mile too big for him trailing on the ground, and its frills standing up round his neck and sweeping over his hands.

“I am so sorry, Gervais, so very sorry,” Claudia exclaimed, almost as if it was all her fault. “Wait a moment, dear. I’ll put on my dressing-gown. Here,” and she flung him a shawl which was hanging on a chair close by, “wrap yourself up. You are shivering so. Is the fire quite out?”

“It’s not quite out in my room,” said poor Jerry. “I kept seeing little bits of light in it, and I think it made it worse, for once I thought I saw a shadow pass between it and me,” and he shivered again violently. “Oh, Miss Meredon,” he half sobbed, “I do wish you had let me go home last night.”

“But it was impossible—it really was,” said Claudia. “You will make me blame myself for all your troubles, Gervais. I should not have let you set out to walk home in the snow.”

“No, no, it wasn’t your fault,” said Jerry.

“Then try and leave off shivering, and tell me what frightened you so. And who can have been mischievous enough to tell you all that nonsense about the ghost?” she added indignantly.

“It wasn’t any one here,” said Jerry. “I’ve known it a long time, and I never was frightened before. It was papa who told it us—he stayed here once when he was a little boy, and he was frightened himself. And he slept in the very room where I am now—that is how I knew the name.”

“Well, if your father knows the whole story he might have told you that the ghost never appears to or is heard by any one but a member of the Osbert family, which shows you couldn’t have heard it, my dear Gervais,” said Claudia smiling, in order to comfort him, though to tell the truth her own heart was beating a good deal faster than usual.

Jerry’s face cleared.

“I didn’t know that,” he said. “I am very glad.”

“But what am I to do?” said Claudia. “I must get you warm again. I suppose I had better call up Mrs Ball or some one.”

“Oh, no, please don’t,” Jerry entreated. “I should be so ashamed. I’ll try and not mind now, if you’d let me have the candle to go back to my room with.”

But his wan face and trembling voice belied his words—though Claudia respected him the more for his struggle to overcome his fears.

“I’ll go with you to your room,” she said, “and we’ll try to make up the fire. It would be much cheerier with a good blaze, wouldn’t it?”

The two took their way across the landing through the door, which Claudia had so thoughtfully propped open. And “Oh,” Jerry ejaculated, “I don’t know what I would have done if that door had been shut!”

The fire was by no means in a hopeless condition, and it was not the first time by any means that Claudia had skilfully doctored one. For she had taken her share in many days and nights too of nursing at home, when her father’s eyes were at their worst, or the younger children had measles or scarlet fever. And soon a bright blaze rewarded her efforts.

“How clever you are,” said Jerry admiringly. “I don’t believe Charlotte could do up a fire like that. I didn’t think—”

“What?” said Claudia.

“I didn’t think such—such a grand girl as you would know how to do things like that.”

Claudia turned her laughing face, on which rested the glow of the fire, towards the boy, who was now comfortably ensconced in a big arm-chair with a blanket round him.

“You’ll have to alter your opinion of me, Gervais. I’m not ‘grand’ at all.”

“But I think you are; and I think you are very pretty. If you only saw now how the flames make your hair shine!” said the child dreamily. “And you are very, very kind. I shall tell Charlotte. I am not sure that she wouldn’t have laughed at me a little about the ghost. She thinks being frightened so babyish.”

“Perhaps she has never been tried,” said Claudia.

“What was it you heard, Gervais?”

“It was like sobbing and groaning in a muffled kind of way. It came from up-stairs, at least I fancied so; perhaps it was because I knew the haunted room is up-stairs—papa told me. At first I was rather sleepy, and I thought I was dreaming—I’ve had such queer dreams all night; perhaps it was with them giving me brandy, you know. And so I thought I was dreaming, and then when I woke up and heard it still, I thought it was the wind. But it seemed to come down the stair in the queerest way—really as if it was somebody, and almost into the room, as if it wanted me to get up and see what was the matter. And all of a sudden I seemed to remember where I was, and all that papa had told us came back into my mind, and I thought of the tower room up-stairs and the poor ghost crying all alone. Miss Meredon, I’m awfully sorry for the ghost, do you know! I used to think if ever I got a chance I’d speak to him, and ask him if I could do anything for him. But—” and Jerry drew a deep breath.

“Only, Gervais, it couldn’t have been him after all; you see you’re not a relation of his.”

“No, but I didn’t know that. I’ll try to think that it was the wind, or the owls, or anything.”

“And that you were not quite well, and that made you more fanciful; you see you had been dreaming already in a fanciful way.”

“Yes,” said Jerry, though his tone was only half convinced.

“And now don’t you think you can manage to go to sleep? Get into bed, and I’ll sit here beside you. I will leave the candle alight, and I will make up the fire so that it shall last till morning. It is near morning now, I fancy.”

“Thank you, awfully,” said Jerry. “Yes, I’ll try to go to sleep. I don’t like you to have to sit up like that; as soon as I’m at all asleep, please go. I have a feeling that I won’t hear any more noises now.—Oh what a lot I shall have to tell Charlotte about how awfully good she is,” he said to himself. And he lay perfectly still and tried to breathe regularly so that Claudia should think he was asleep, and as sometimes happens, the simulation brought the reality. In ten minutes he was really and truly in a deep and peaceful slumber.

Then Claudia went quietly back to her own room. All was perfectly still up the stair leading to the tower, but a strange, puzzled, half-sad feeling crept over the girl.

“It really seems as if there were something in that old story,” she thought. “Why should that poor little fellow be so impressed by it? I can’t understand his father’s having heard it too. And Gervais said his father used to stay here as a boy. How could that have been? I wonder if it can have anything to do with Aunt Mildred’s prejudice against the Waldrons—for I am sure she is a little prejudiced against them.”

But Claudia was too tired and sleepy to pursue her reflections further, and her slumbers till the next morning were dreamless and undisturbed.

The little guest was fast asleep when Mrs Ball went to look after him.

“It is the best thing he can do, poor child. It would be a shame to disturb him. He does look a delicate little creature, to be sure. One sees it even plainer by daylight,” she said, when she came to Claudia’s room to report. “But you’re looking tired yourself, Miss Meredon, this morning. It was rather an upset for you last night. He did look deathly when they brought him in.”

“Yes; he looked dreadful,” Claudia agreed. “How is her ladyship, Mrs Ball? It was an upset for her too.”

“I’ve not seen her, miss; but she was ringing to know if the letters hadn’t come. It will be a very dull Christmas here if my lady goes up to spend it in town. We were hoping with a young lady like you here, missy, it would have been a bit livelier. There are some nice families about, where there are young people, but my lady’s got so out of the way of seeing any one, but just her own old friends.”

“I’m afraid my being here wouldn’t have made Christmas any cheerier, Mrs Ball,” said Claudia. “I don’t much mind whether we spend it here or in London. I’m glad to be a companion to Aunt Mildred, at least I’m glad that she seems to like to have me.”

“That she does, missy,” said the old housekeeper heartily.

Lady Mildred still seemed anxious and pre-occupied when Claudia met her at breakfast; but she was gentle and less irritable than was usual with her when she was at all uneasy.

“I have no letter from Mr Miller, yet. I cannot understand it,” she said; “he promised to write at once, and explain what this business is that he wants to see me about. He said it was nothing pressing—‘pressing’ is such an indefinite word. If it was nothing pressing what did he say he wanted to see me for, and ask so particularly if I was likely to be in town.”

“It is as if he wished to talk over something with you, perhaps to see you more than once, and not hurriedly,” said Claudia.

“Yes,” said Lady Mildred, “that is the feeling his letter gave me. The little boy seems better this morning Mrs Ball tells me,” she went on.

“Yes, she came to my room to tell me so,” Claudia replied; she was on the point of going on to tell her aunt about the disturbances of the night when something made her stop short. It would be scarcely fair to Gervais to do so, she reflected; at any rate while he was still in the house and might dislike being cross-questioned about the matter, as Lady Mildred would probably insist upon. Then she shrank a little from bringing up the old ghost-story just now, when her aunt was already evidently rather uneasy, for Claudia had detected a certain dislike to and avoidance of the subject on Lady Mildred’s part, even while she affected to treat it all as nonsense.

“I will say nothing about it just now,” the girl decided.

They had scarcely finished breakfast when wheels were heard on the gravel drive outside, and there came a ring at the bell.

“Mr Waldron, if you please, my lady,” Ball came in to announce with his usual urbane solemnity. “He begs to apologise for coming so early, but if he can go up-stairs to see the young gentleman, he hopes it will not in any way disturb your ladyship.”

Lady Mildred rose from the table.

“Show Mr Waldron into the morning room,” she said; and when the visitor entered the room he found her already there.

“I am ashamed—” he began, his usual rather cold courtesy to Lady Mildred tempered by the sense of his obligation to her; but she interrupted him.

“Pray don’t thank me, Mr Waldron,” she said; “I have done nothing to be thanked for. Hospitality in such a case is an absolute matter of course. I am only thankful the accident proved no worse. I have a good account of your little son this morning. You would like to see him, no doubt?”

Mr Waldron bowed.

“At once if possible,” he said.

Lady Mildred rang the bell.

“He is a fine little fellow,” she said, with perhaps the shadow of an effort perceptible in her tone; “but evidently delicate. You will excuse me for saying that it seems to me very rash to let a boy like him be so far from home and on foot in such weather.”

Mr Waldron’s face flushed slightly. He did not like being taken to task especially about his care and management of his children, but he felt that there was room for Lady Mildred’s censure.

“You are right,” he said; “but ‘accidents will happen in the best-regulated families,’” he went on with a slight smile. “It was all a mistake, the other boys would never have let him start to walk back alone from the pond had they not felt sure he would meet the dog-cart. I can scarcely even now make out how he missed it.”

“He is not your eldest son, then,” said Lady Mildred. Mr Waldron’s face flushed again.

“No,” he said; “I have three older.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Lady Mildred, with a not altogether agreeable inflection in her voice; “then there is no fear of the Waldron family coming to an end.”

But the entrance of the footman prevented any necessity of the visitor’s replying.

“Show Mr Waldron up to the chintz room,” said Lady Mildred.

Jerry’s father started a little. Had they put the child there—in his own old quarters? It was a curious coincidence.

His mind was full of many thoughts as he followed the servant. He had never been at Silverthorns except once or twice for an interview of five minutes or so, on business matters, since the long ago days of his boyhood, and old memories crowded thickly upon him as he made his way along the well-remembered passages, and up the familiar stairs.

“To think that this was once home to me,”—he thought—“to think of my grandmother—more than mother as she was to me—having died in privation, almost in want, after being mistress here for a good part of her long life. Yes; it would have been hard in any case, but that, we could have borne uncomplainingly, had we not been treated with such unnecessary rigour and cruelty. It is very bitter to remember. I have done well to bring the children up in ignorance of it all.”

But these thoughts were to some extent driven from his mind when he entered the chintz room, and saw Jerry. He had not expected to find the boy looking so ill—he was sitting up in bed eating his breakfast, but he was very pale and uneasy-looking, and when his father stooped to kiss him, he flung his arms round him, and clutched him convulsively.

“You’ve come to take me home, papa,” he cried; “I’ll be ready directly. Oh, I shall be so glad to go home!”

“My poor Jerry,” said Mr Waldron; “why you talk as if you had been away for years. But they’ve been very kind to you here?”

“Oh, very,” said the boy, in a tone of the deepest conviction; “but, papa, I wouldn’t sleep here alone another night for anything. I can’t tell you all now; but it was like what you told us about. I heard the sobbing and sighing, I did indeed.”

Mr Waldron started a little, but imperceptibly to Jerry.

“I shouldn’t have told it,” he said regretfully; “of course I would never have dreamt of doing so had I foreseen this. It was only natural, Jerry, that you should think you heard those sounds, when your mind was full of the story, and you were besides not well—excited and feverish probably.”

“Yes, that was what Miss Meredon said, and—”

“Does she know you were frightened?” interrupted Mr Waldron in surprise.

“Oh, yes; but I’ll tell you all at home. She tried to satisfy me, and she said one thing which almost did—that nobody ever hears these sounds except one of the family. But I’ve been thinking after all that can’t be, for you heard them and you aren’t one of the family, so why shouldn’t I?”

“It only proves that what one fanciful little boy thought he heard, another fanciful little boy may have—no, I won’t say thought he heard. I did hear them; but I believe it was perfectly possible they were caused by owls, and partly perhaps by some peculiar draught of air. This is very old, this part of the house. Did you know that?”

“Oh, yes; this is the very room you used to have. I remembered the name.”

“Yes,” said Mr Waldron, and he looked about him with feelings his little son could but very vaguely fathom. It was indeed the very room, as Jerry said; strangely little changed in the more than thirty years that had passed since he saw it. There was the queer cupboard in the wall where he kept his treasures, the old dark mahogany wash-handstand with the blue and white toilet-ware; yes, actually the very same; the faded chintz curtains which, in some far-off time when they had been the pride doubtless of some Silverthorns chatelaine, had given its name to the room; and to complete the resemblance, from where he sat, the glimpse through the window of the snow-covered drive and trees outside. For it was in winter that he and his grandmother had left Silverthorns, as seemed then, for ever.

But with a sigh he roused himself, and returned to the present.

“Jerry,” he said; “I have not brought a close carriage for you. We should have had to get one from the ‘George,’ and in the note last night something was said of the doctor seeing you this morning to say if you could come.”

“Oh, papa,” said Jerry; “I can’t stay.”

His father looked at him again. It did seem as if it would do the boy less harm to go than to stay.

“Very well,” he said; “I will try to arrange it.”

Chapter Thirteen.

Mr Miller’s News.

There were difficulties to contend with. Lady Mildred, whose hospitable instincts were aroused, and who felt really anxious about the delicate little boy, would not hear of his leaving without the doctor’s permission.

“He will be here directly,” she said; but it was impossible for Mr Waldron to wait. He glanced at Claudia in a sort of despair. She understood him.

“I am almost sure Mr Webb will say Gervais may safely go,” she said; “perhaps if he is fidgety and nervous at being away from—from his mother and all, it would be better to run the risk of cold than to excite him by keeping him here.”

“Yes,” said Mr Waldron, gratefully; “that is just it. Then I may send a close carriage in about a couple of hours.”

“No, certainly not,” said Lady Mildred sharply. “If Mr Webb does give leave for him to go to-day, it shall certainly be in the brougham. I shall send Mrs Ball or some one with him—”

“I have some one with me,” said Mr Waldron, “waiting in the dog-cart at the door.”

Lady Mildred almost screamed.

“Waiting at the door in this weather! My dear Mr Waldron—”

A few minutes later, as Jerry lay wondering if he might not get up, a slight rustle in the doorway caught his ears, at all times of the sharpest. It was clear daylight, impossible to think of ghosts or anything uncanny; but Jerry’s heart nevertheless beat rather faster than usual for an instant or two. Then there was a little cry, a rush towards the bed, disjointed exclamations—“Oh, dear Charlotte! is it you?”

“My own old Jerry, to think you were nearly lost in the snow. Oh, how miserable we were! Oh my old Jerry.”

There was some one in the doorway, some one who had brought Charlotte up-stairs, whose eyes filled with tears as she listened to them.

“Oh, how happy they are to be together, not to have to be separated,” she thought, as her fancy flew off to her own dear ones, Lalage and Alix, and the three little brothers at the Rectory.

And an hour or two later, Jerry, well wrapped up, and in Charlotte’s careful convoy, was driven home in Lady Mildred’s deliciously comfortable brougham. How his tongue went, how intense was Charlotte’s interest in the thrilling experiences of the night before!

“It is very strange,” she said thoughtfully; “indeed the whole thing is too strange. That you should have been put to sleep in that very same room; oh, I can fancy how frightened you must have been. I don’t think it was babyish at all.”

For that it had been so, was Jerry’s worst misgiving.

“And oh, Charlotte, she was so kind; whether she’s spoilt or not, whatever she is, I shall always say she is very, very kind.”

“Yes, Jerry dear; I will try more than ever to—to like her, at least not to be jealous of her: it is a horrible feeling,” said Charlotte with a sigh. And a softer feeling than she had yet had towards Claudia came over her as she thought of all her gentle kindness that very morning; how she had entered into Jerry’s gladness when the doctor said he might go home; how she had herself seen to the hot-water bottles in the brougham, and brought the warmest wraps, and insisted on lending her furred carriage overshoes, as Jerry’s boots had shrunk. How lovely she had looked as she stood at the hall-door to see them off! It had been impossible for Charlotte to resist giving her a warm pressure of the hand, and murmuring a hearty “thank you.” Afterwards she felt doubly glad that she had done so, though she was far from thinking just now how long it would be before she saw again the sweet, bright face against whose attractiveness she had so resolutely steeled herself.

Lady Mildred continued uneasy and nervous; she asked Claudia not to go to school that day.

“For one thing,” she said, “it would not be fit for you to go with Kelpie, and there is no horse roughed except the one that has gone in the brougham; and I have a sort of feeling that there may be a telegram from Mr Miller as there was no letter. It is possible we may go up to town almost at once.”

But no telegram came.

The next morning, however, brought a letter from Mr Miller in which he decidedly seconded Lady Mildred’s proposal to spend Christmas in town. If she could manage to do so, he said, it would be in every way more satisfactory than his coming down to Silverthorns. For the business he wanted to see her about, was not anything that could be settled at once. He should hope to have several long talks with her.

“Tiresome man,” said Lady Mildred; “why can’t he speak out and say what it is. Claudia, I shall not feel comfortable now till I have seen him. I shall have a telegram this morning to say if I can get the rooms I want—my own house, you know, Claudia, has been let since Mr Osbert’s death—and it so, I shall decide to go up to-morrow. You must send a note to your Miss Lloyd to say you will be away till after Christmas.”

“Very well, Aunt Mildred,” Claudia replied.

Lady Mildred glanced at her sharply.

“What is the matter, child?” she said. “Are you vexed at having to miss a week or ten days of these precious lessons? Any other girl would like the idea of a visit to town, even in winter. I will take you about, as much as I can.”

“I do like it, indeed, aunt,” said Claudia earnestly; “and for some things I am really not sorry to miss this last little bit at Miss Lloyd’s.”

“You are ahead of all the Wortherham misses, I suppose, and afraid of hurting their feelings, or something of that sort, I suppose,” said Lady Mildred, with a sort of half-grudging admiration. “My dear Claudia, you are your father’s own daughter—Quixotic is no word for you. You won’t find that kind of thing answer in the world, I assure you.”

But Claudia laughed brightly.

“I think the world is a much nicer place than most people allow, Aunt Mildred.”

“You have seen such a great deal of it,” Lady Mildred replied. “I am not sure but that you have seen enough of the Wortherham corner of it, however. I think you are beyond Miss Lloyd’s institution. What you should have now is some first-rate teaching in France and Germany.”

Claudia’s eyes glistened.

“Of course I should like that very much,” she said; “but I do think the teaching very good at Miss Lloyd’s—it has been already such a test to me of what I really do know.”

The telegram with a favourable reply about the rooms came that morning. The very next day saw Lady Mildred and Claudia installed in them. Claudia had never been in London before for more than a day or two at a time, and in spite of the dreary winter weather she was full of delight. Even the slight fog, which of course greeted them on their awaking the next morning, could not depress her spirits.

“I have always wanted so to see a real London fog,” she said with satisfaction, when her aunt called her back from her station at the window.

“But, my dear, this is not a real fog,” said Lady Mildred laughing. “It is foggy, certainly; but a real London fog, as you call it, would rather astonish you.”

“I hope we shall have one then, while we are in town,” said Claudia, naïvely.

And Lady Mildred was still laughing at her when Mr Miller was announced, and Claudia was dismissed.

“What a very charming girl,” began the old gentleman, as she left the room. Everybody always did say something of the kind about Claudia, but in the present case the remark struck Lady Mildred as rather forced. It seemed to her that Mr Miller was deferring the evil moment of some communication he had to make to her. “Is she a relation of yours—or—or perhaps of Mr Osbert’s?” he went on with a sudden gleam of interest.

“Of Mr Osbert’s!” repeated Lady Mildred, contemptuously. “What are you thinking of, my good Mr Miller? You know all about Mr Osbert’s relations as well as or better than I do. You know he had none near enough to count except General Osbert and his family; and General Osbert has no daughter.”

“No; but there are relations of Mr Osbert’s, and not so very distant ones either, living within a short drive of you,” said Mr Miller, rather snappishly. He did not like Lady Mildred’s tone. “I had occasion several times to remind Mr Osbert of this, though possibly your ladyship’s attention was never drawn to it.”

“You mean those Waldrons, I suppose,” said Lady Mildred. “I do not know their exact connection with the Osberts. I know my husband did not like them; he had some trouble with old Mrs Waldron when he first came to Silverthorns, I remember his telling me. Some interference or some unreasonable claim she made. But why should we waste time in speaking about them just now, Mr Miller; you have some important matters to talk over with me, and I have been making myself quite uneasy with wondering what they could be.”

She expected some courteous and smiling expression of regret and reassurance from the lawyer; but to her surprise his face remained very grave.

“Yes; I have some most important matters to discuss with you,” he said; “I have been foreseeing the present state of things for some time. There has been—I have had bad news from Cannes. You are aware that General Osbert and his family—a very small family now—usually spend the winters there, though I think you never have any direct communication with them?”

“Never,” said Lady Mildred; “though they keep themselves informed of my state of health, no doubt. My death will be a matter of some moment to them.” But Mr Miller took no notice of this caustic observation.

“As I was saying,” he went on, “I have had bad news from Cannes. The elder son—the only one, one might almost say, for the other one is hopelessly consumptive—had a bad accident last week; he was thrown from his horse. Yesterday evening came a telegram announcing his death.”

Lady Mildred started.

“But he was married,” she said hastily.

“Yes; he has been married several years to a cousin on his mother’s side, but he has left no children; he never had any. General Osbert is terribly broken down by this, and he is already an old man. It is practically the end of the family. The other son cannot live many months.”

“And I am an old woman,” said Lady Mildred: “I may die any day. Don’t be afraid to speak out, Mr Miller. You are thinking of what will become of the property if all General Osbert’s family thus comes to an end.”

“Yes,” said Mr Miller quietly, “I am. Not what will become of it, but what should. I have much to explain to you, which I do not think you have ever thoroughly understood, indeed I have not always thoroughly understood it myself. There were some things wrongly done when the property last changed hands—not so much illegally as unfairly and unkindly.”

“You mean to say when my husband’s branch of it came into possession,” said Lady Mildred hastily. “I will listen to no blame of him, Mr Miller.”

Mr Miller smiled a little.

“I do not ask you to do so, Lady Mildred,” he said. “Mr Osbert was misinformed and prejudiced; and there was foolish pride on the other side—reluctance to explain things properly. I blame the old squire’s sister, the late Mrs Waldron, for this, though she was an admirable woman. If you will allow me, I will go over the whole with you, and explain exactly the present position of things.”

Lady Mildred was closeted with Mr Miller for a long time that morning. When he at last left and Claudia rejoined her, the girl saw that she was grave and thoughtful, but not restless or uneasy.

“Mr Miller had melancholy news to give me, Claudia,” she said; “my husband’s nephew, General Osbert’s son, is dead. It is very, very sad for them.” Claudia’s bright face shadowed over.

“Have they no other children?”

“It is not ‘they’—the old man is a widower. Yes; he has one other son, but he is frightfully delicate,” and Lady Mildred sighed. “I have a good deal on my mind, my dear. I don’t quite see what to do. What should you say to our going abroad; I may have to see the General on business matters.”

“I should like it, of course,” said Claudia; “especially if—please don’t think me selfish—if I could go on with my lessons.”

“Oh, you tiresome child! You have lessons on the brain: yes, of course you would go on with them, and learn more than at Miss Lloyd’s. No, I am not vexed with you; it is right and necessary that you should feel as you do. I wonder, by the bye, how that little fellow is—the little Waldron boy. I hope his adventure has done him no lasting harm; he did look so very thin and delicate. Perhaps the hearing of those unfortunate people’s troubles has made me think of him again.”

“Might I write to his sister to ask how he is, Aunt Mildred?” said Claudia. She would have spoken eagerly, for she felt so, but she knew that with Lady Mildred it was best to be calm.

Rather to her surprise the response was almost cordial.

“Yes; I have no objection. It would seem only natural after our having had him with us. Tell the girl I should like to hear that his exposure in the snow has done him no harm.”

“Thank you, aunt; I will write at once,” said Claudia, flushing with pleasure.

“What do you thank me for, my dear?” said Lady Mildred, with a rather curious smile. “It is rather I that should thank you for writing the letter for me.”

But Claudia saw that she was not vexed, though she could not quite understand her.

“Aunt Mildred is rather incomprehensible sometimes,” she said to herself; “but it is no use minding; she is so very good and kind.”

For it was not by any means Claudia’s way to worry or perplex herself with useless puzzles or wonderings; her heart and mind were too full of pleasanter and more profitable things.

She was not able, much as she wished to do so, to write to Charlotte that day. For she had to go out with her aunt, to write some notes to friends for her, and various other small pieces of business to attend to which made it evening before she had any leisure; and in the evening Lady Mildred disliked to see her occupied. And the next day was Sunday, when, as everybody knows, all the postal arrangements in London go to sleep.

So it was not till Tuesday morning that Claudia’s letter was put into Charlotte’s hands at the breakfast-table.

“A letter for me,” she exclaimed, with some excitement and surprise; for Charlotte’s letters, except on the very rare occasions when she was away from home for a little, were few and far between. “I wonder what it is. I wish it could be anything to please poor Jerry,” she went on speaking half to herself.

For since they had brought him home, Jerry had been ill—confined to bed now for the best part of a week, and it seemed very melancholy without him, even in that busy household. It had not done him any harm to bring him straight home that first day; the harm was done already; the chill had given him a bad feverish cold, and though it was not anything very serious he was much weakened by it.

“He must get up his strength, or we shall be afraid to let him out again till the fine weather comes,” the doctor said; “and that would be a sad thing for a boy of his age.”

Then when he went down-stairs with Mrs Waldron to write a prescription for a tonic, he sat looking thoughtful and pre-occupied for a minute or two. Jerry’s mother was a little alarmed.

“You don’t think there is anything much the matter with him?” she said.

“No, oh no; he has rather lost ground in his general health the last few months. He needed a fresh start or a fillip, and unluckily he has, so to speak, had one the wrong way. But there is nothing to be uneasy about, only considering how wonderfully he has improved in the last few years, I should like to see him still stronger.”

“Yes,” Mrs Waldron agreed; “and in another year or so he will be getting into a higher class at school, and he will have to work harder, that will be trying for him.”

“Exactly,” said the doctor, who had known Jerry since he was a baby; “now’s the time for him to get up his strength. You couldn’t by any possibility, I suppose, manage to send him out of England, to some of the mild health places, for a winter? It would be the making of him.”

Mrs Waldron shook her head. She saw no chance whatever of such a thing and said so.

“Ah, well,” said the doctor, “we must do our best. I dare say he’ll pull up again. It was only an idea that struck me.”

And when he had gone, and Jerry’s mother went up-stairs again, it struck her too that the boy did look sadly in want of something of the kind.

“If only we were rich,” she thought. “When we are all well it does not seem to press so—it is illness that brings small means home to one sorely.”

Charlotte opened her letter, and glanced through it; then made a little exclamation. She had her wish. It was something that would please Jerry.

“What is it?” asked her mother.

“It is,”—Charlotte began with a very slight shade of reluctance—“it is a letter from Miss Meredon to ask how Jerry is.”

“It is very nice of her to have thought of it,” said Mrs Waldron.

“She writes, she says, by Lady Mildred’s wish,” said Charlotte; “they are in London.”

“Well, you may run up-stairs and tell Jerry about it. It will please him,” said her mother.

Chapter Fourteen.

Lady Mildred Makes up her Mind.

Jerry was sitting up in bed; he was so far better that no serious illness was now to be feared, but he was weak and depressed, feeling vaguely “sorry for himself,” not quite sure what he wanted, nor eager to profit by the doctor’s permission to get up in the afternoon, and go down to have tea in the drawing-room.

He glanced up listlessly as Charlotte came in.

“I have an hour still before I need to go to school,” she said, “so I have come up to you, Jerry: there is a letter about you this morning.”

“About me!” Jerry exclaimed; “anything about school, do you mean? They know I’m ill.”

“No, not from school; it’s from Miss Meredon, to ask how you are; they’re in London.”

“How nice of her!” said Jerry, his eyes brightening. “I’m sure you must see, Charlotte, how nice she is.”

“Yes,” Charlotte allowed; “she is kind and good; I’ll never say she’s not. But it can’t be difficult to be nice when one has everything one wants, like her,” she added, reverting to her old strain.

Jerry looked disappointed.

“I think you are rather unfair, Charlotte,” he said. “If she wasn’t nice you’d say she was spoilt and selfish, and as she is nice you say it’s no credit to her. How can you tell that it isn’t very difficult to be nice and kind to others when one has everything one wants oneself? Papa says it is very difficult indeed not to get spoilt when one’s like that.”

“I’d like to be tried,” said Charlotte.

“Besides,” pursued Jerry, “do you know I’m not quite sure that she has everything the way we fancied.”

Charlotte looked up eagerly.

“What do you mean?” she said. “What can there be that she hasn’t got? We know she’s very rich and clever and pretty; that’s a good deal, any way.”

“But I’m almost sure she has to be away from the people she loves most,” said Jerry; “I know it by some things she said. And I could tell by her ways that she’s used to brothers and sisters—I fancy there’s a lot of them.”

“She is rather to be pitied for that,” said Charlotte half-laughingly, “though it can’t be so bad when people are rich. And then as Lady Mildred has adopted her what can it matter?”

“I shouldn’t like to be adopted away from you all, however grand and rich I was to be,” said Jerry, “and I don’t believe you’d like it either, whatever you say. You make yourself out worse than you are, Charlotte.”

“Well, read the letter,” she said, and Jerry did so. As he gave it back to Charlotte he grew rather red.

“Do you see?” he said; “they’re not coming back—not till after Christmas. Charlotte, you’re sure of the German prize.”

Charlotte’s face lighted up.

“I did not notice that,” she said; “I thought she said something about staying a few days.”

“No,” said Jerry, “she says, ‘We shall not return to Silverthorns till after Christmas, perhaps a few days after, and perhaps not so soon.’”

Charlotte drew a deep breath.

“I see,” she said. “My composition is nearly finished. Oh, Jerry, how I hope I shall get the prize now.”

“You are sure to,” he said shortly.

“Unless,” Charlotte went on, “unless she possibly finishes it there, and sends it back by post.”

“Nonsense,” said Jerry; “I am sure she won’t. She wouldn’t have time for one thing, and—”

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t think she’s the sort of girl to set herself so to win a prize when she’s been so short a time at school with you all,” said Jerry.

“No; perhaps not. Of course it can’t matter to her as it does to me. I dare say she’s forgotten all about it now she’s up in London amusing herself,” said Charlotte in a satisfied tone which Jerry found rather provoking. “I don’t mind her not trying—I mean I’m not too proud to say I know she would have won it if she had. I shall always say so, for she is much further on and much cleverer than any of us. And some of them have been working very hard lately. It isn’t as if I had no one worth trying against.”

Jerry said no more. He was glad for Charlotte, but he did feel it hard that Claudia’s self-sacrifice, which had been just as great and real as if after events had not rendered it unnecessary, should remain for ever unknown and unappreciated.

“I wonder if I shall never be able to tell Charlotte,” he said to himself. “Long after, perhaps, when she’s left off caring about school things. I should like her to know some day,” and his blue eyes gazed out into the future wistfully.

“What are you thinking of, Jerry?” said Charlotte suddenly. “Why do you look so melancholy? The doctor says you may get up this afternoon.”

“I know he did,” said Jerry, “but I don’t think I want to. I’m too tired,” and with a little sigh of weariness he lay down again on his pillows.

Charlotte looked at him in distress.

“Oh, dear,” she said; “how unlucky that snowy day was, though I suppose things might have turned out worse.”

“Yes,” replied Jerry with complacency; “I might have had rheumatic fever, or brain fever, perhaps. But, Charlotte, it wasn’t because I was feverish that I heard those noises that night; I know it wasn’t. And I don’t believe papa thinks so either. It can’t be true about only a member of the family hearing it, for you see there was papa when he was a little boy. I’d like to tell her, Claudia, that.”

“It was very queer,” said Charlotte; “you don’t know how pleased I am to have seen that part of the house, Jerry. I took a good look up the stair to where the tower room must be: there was something melancholy about the house, wasn’t there? How awfully nice it would be with a large family in it, and lots of running about.”

“You wouldn’t mind lots of brothers and sisters then,” said Jerry.

“No, I’d like it; just fancy what fun we could have. But I must go, Jerry. I will write to Miss Meredon when I come home.”

“I think I’d like to write to her myself,” said Jerry. “Ask mamma if I may.”

“Very well,” said Charlotte, rather surprised; “I dare say mamma will be quite pleased that you want to do it.” And so Mrs Waldron was, for Jerry’s lassitude and want of energy were troubling her.

He quite brightened up over his letter.

“You won’t care to see it, will you, mamma?” he asked. “You see she’s such a jolly—an understanding sort of girl; she won’t bother about how it’s spelt, and all that.”

“But you will send a proper message of thanks to Lady Mildred,” said his mother. “It is very good of her to take so much interest in you, and she was very kind to you at Silverthorns.”

“Not as kind as Miss Meredon was,” said Jerry; “but of course I’ll say it properly, mamma.”

Mrs Waldron told her husband that evening of the letter, and Jerry’s replying to it himself.

“I was glad to see him interested about it,” she said; “it is so unlike him to be so listless. How strange it seems that we should be in any way brought in contact with Silverthorns after all these years!”

“Stranger even than you think it,” he replied. “Do you know I heard only to-day that General Osbert’s eldest—or elder, he has only two—son is dead, in consequence of a fall from his horse? He died on the 13th, just the day Jerry was so frightened at Silverthorns. And it was when my old uncle died that I, as a child, was so startled there.”

“You won’t tell Jerry? It would only deepen the impression.”

“Of course not. Besides, there are so many other ways of accounting for what he heard—his own feverish state at the time, in the first place.”

“Perhaps it is on account of this news that Lady Mildred has gone up to town just now,” said Mrs Waldron.

“I hardly think so: there is still the other son, who may be married and have children, or this one, poor fellow, may have left sons himself for all I know. I have never kept up much knowledge of them. You see it cannot matter to us, as it is so very improbable but that Lady Mildred would leave all to her own people if the Osberts died out.”

Mrs Waldron smiled.

“I can’t see it quite that way,” she said; “you are half Osbert, and then you were so associated with the place from being brought up there. I am sure your grand-uncle would rather it had gone to you than to those far-off cousins.”

“Ah, well, it is much better not to think about it,” said Mr Waldron philosophically.

Jerry’s letter took him some time; he was not satisfied with the first production, and being a very particular, not to say “fussy,” little person, he determined to copy it out again. And he was very easily tired still. So it was not till the next day but one that Claudia received the answer to her letter of inquiry.

Her face lighted up with pleasure and amusement as she read it:

“My dear Miss Meredon,” it began— “I have asked Charlotte to let me write myself, to thank you for writing about me. I am better, thank you, but I am still in bed. The doctor says I may get up this afternoon, but I’m not sure that I’m inclined. It is so cold and I am so tired still; I wish it was summer again. I want to tell you that Charlotte is in very good spirits, and she is working hard, specially at German. I should like to see you again. Perhaps some day I could go to call on you when you come back, for I should like to thank Lady Mildred Osbert too for being so kind to me. Papa and mamma wish me to thank her for wanting to know how I was. I wish you a merry Christmas. I remain,— “Yours truly,— “G.T. Waldron.”

They were at breakfast when the letter came. Lady Mildred glanced at Claudia’s smiling face.

“Home news, I suppose, to make you look so sunshiny?” she said, in the half-teasing tone that Claudia had learnt not to mind.

“No, Aunt Mildred; it’s a letter from little Gervais Waldron,” she said, and after a moment’s imperceptible hesitation in which she had time to say to herself,—“there is nothing in it which would tell his secret,”—she handed it to Lady Mildred, who read it.

“Poor little fellow,” she said, “it doesn’t seem much as if he were in a very promising way; they should send him abroad for the rest of the winter. He looks to me just the sort of child that might be set up by it. I think it a cruel thing to send away hopeless invalids to those southern places, even if it prolongs their lives a little it too often deprives them of their homes and friends at the last. But it is a very different thing for a delicate child with no actual disease. In such a case it may give a start for life.”

Claudia listened with some surprise. Her aunt’s interest in the subject of this boy was not exactly the sort of thing that Lady Mildred’s usual ways would have led her to expect.

“I dare say it would be a very good thing—the best in the world for him,” she said. “But I am sure they could not possibly afford it.”

“Why? Are they so poor do you think?” said Lady Mildred quickly.

Claudia could not help laughing a very little. “Auntie,” she said, “people needn’t be desperately poor not to be able to send a child abroad for the winter. But I think the Waldrons are poorer than many families who yet would find it very difficult to do that.”

“How do you know—how can you judge? You’ve never been in their house?” said Lady Mildred sharply and almost suspiciously; “and I put you on your honour not to get intimate with the girl or with any of your schoolfellows.”

“I am not intimate with any of them, and with Charlotte Waldron perhaps less than with any; and of course I have never been at their house nor at anybody’s house without your knowing. I would never do such a thing, dear aunt; you know I wouldn’t,” said Claudia gently. “But I can tell quite well that they are poor,” she went on, seeing Lady Mildred’s face clear again; “it is a sort of instinct, because you see I know so well about it myself. Charlotte has had the same dress ever since I have known her, and once or twice, when it had got wet or muddy, she came with a still plainer and much older one. And—other little things that I don’t suppose most girls would notice—I have seen her look quite troubled when her clean cuffs got inked, or when a copy-book was lost and she had to get an extra one. She is a very, very neat and careful girl. Some of the others call her mean—once they began doing so before me as if they thought I would join with them in it, because they fancy I am rich! I did feel so angry; for I know it all so well, you see, Aunt Mildred.”

“Bless the child—she talks as if she were a char woman with half-a-dozen children,” said Lady Mildred. “I suppose you think you know a great deal more of the practical side of life than I do, my dear?”

But though her tone was sharp, Claudia could see that she was not vexed, but on the contrary interested, and even touched.

“I know more in some ways about being poor than you do, I think, Aunt Mildred,” she replied. “Oh, in hundreds of little ways that one would be almost ashamed to put into words, that rich people would really not understand! You see with my being the eldest at home, and mamma always wanting to save papa all the worries she could, I could not but know a great deal. But nothing is too hard when we are together. You can’t know, aunt, how different everything seems now that I can look forward to staying at home, and helping them so beautifully—all thanks to you. There were times when mamma and I used sometimes to think I should have to go away as a teacher in some school, or as a sort of nursery governess even. And now it is so different.”