Mrs. Molesworth

“ Everybody in the world dislikes others without real reason. Don’t you remember Dr Fell?” said Gueda.
“No, it isn’t that,” said Charlotte. “I don’t dislike her without reason. If you weren’t going away, Gueda, I don’t know that I would tell you anything. I do dislike her, and my reason is that she is interfering with me in every way. Why did she come here at all? She is charming, and rich, and clever—why couldn’t she leave us all at peace? I am perfectly sick of her name—it is nothing but Miss Meredon this, Miss Meredon that, wherever you go. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mr Waldron gave a little laugh.
“You are treading on difficult ground, Gipsy. Many things would be better if many other things did not exist at all. But then this world would no longer be this world! As long as it exists, as long as we come into it human beings and not angels, there will be rich and poor. Why, if we were all started equally to-morrow, the differences would be there again in a month! I give Arthur and Ted exactly the same allowance, but at this moment Arthur has some pounds in the Savings’ Bank, and Ted not only is penniless, but probably owes all round.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ I shall meet Claudia in London a week hence and see to a ‘trousseau’ for her, so give yourself no trouble on that head. You can explain to her all I have said. She will understand why I do not wish her to make friendships with any of the Wortherham girls whom she will be thrown with?”
“She will thoroughly understand that she is to follow your wishes in everything,” said Mrs Meredon. “But I must warn you that she is a very sociable child—the world seems to her a very much more delightful place than to most of us, for somehow she always manages to see the best side of people.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Perhaps she has heard all the talk about Lady Mildred’s intending to make her her heiress?”
“I hope not,” said Mr Waldron; “she has certainly hitherto shown a most friendly spirit to us. I should be grieved for our good fortune to cause disappointment to any one.”
“And then she must be so rich and grand already, I don’t suppose it would matter much to her,” said Charlotte.
“I don’t know about that: the Meredons are not a rich family by any means,” said Mr Waldron.
“I shall always love that girl,” said Mrs Waldron enthusiastically. “It is her doing about Jerry. Oh, Charlotte, darling! ”

“ Jerry was the youngest of the four big boys, in the middle of whom came Charlotte. He was lame, poor fellow, and as a small child he had been very delicate. That happily to a great extent was past now, but the gentleness and quickness of perception which often accompany delicate health had remained. Jerry was as good as a sister any day, Charlotte used to declare, and yet not the least “soft” either; considering his lameness it was wonderful what Jerry could do.
There were two tiny sisters up in the nursery, babies that hardly counted as yet in the restless, busy group of older ones. ”

“ Arthur is a good boy, a very good boy as an eldest; but Jerry has a sort of instinctive understandingness about him that makes him the greatest possible comfort. Yes, cold and selfish though she may be, I can pity Lady Mildred when I think of her loneliness.”
“And I don’t know that she is cold and selfish,” said Mr Waldrop. “It is more that she has lived in a very narrow world, and it has never occurred to her to look out beyond it. Self-absorption is, after all, not exactly selfishness. But it is getting late, Amy, and Sunday is not much of a day of rest for you, I am sorry to say.” ”

“ Lady Mildred showed Claudia the letter.
“It will not make you vain,” she said, “for it is your mother it praises, not you. Miss Lloyd must be a straightforward sort of person; most schoolmistresses try to make out that their pupils know nothing when they go to them, and learn everything with them. Does she ever cross-question you as to who those teachers of yours were?”
“No,” said Claudia. “She asked me—or perhaps it was the French governess—if I had ever been abroad, and I said no, and then I think I said I had always been taught at home.” ”

“ I do so long to keep them unworldly and—unsuspicious, unsoured—poor though they may have to be,” and the mother sighed a little.
“Yes,” agreed Mr Waldron earnestly. “I am afraid the worldly spirit is just as insidious when one is poor as when one is rich. And do what we will, Amy, we cannot shelter them from all evil and trouble.”
“I shall be glad if this Miss Meredon, if that is her name, is not in Charlotte’s class,” said Mrs Waldron after a little pause. “I should think it unlikely that she is as far on as Charlotte. ”

“ And if it is any comfort to you, take my word for it that the actual having them gives less than you would believe, when you picture it in all the glow of your imagination.”
“Still,” said Charlotte, “I think one might be awfully good, as well as happy, if one were as rich and all that as Lady Mildred. Think what lots of kind things one might do for other people—I wonder if she does—do you think she does, papa?”
“I believe she does some kind things,” said Mr Waldron; “but I scarcely know her. As a rule rich people do not think very much about doing things for others, Charlotte. ”

“ It does not seem fair, does it, that I, who have been working steadily all these years, doing my best, my very best, should suddenly be set aside by a stranger, to whom the work is far easier than to me?—a girl who is far cleverer than I, who, for all I know—she never tells us anything—may have learnt her German in Germany and her French in France. That isn’t fair competition. If it had been Gueda now, or one of the girls who have learnt as I have done, with no greater advantages, I might have felt it in a way, but I should have known it was fair. ”

“ He has removed all Lady Mildred’s prejudices against me, and what I care for most, against my poor grandmother. And,”—Mr Waldron hesitated,—“Amy, it seems impossible, her intention therefore is now to make me the next proprietor of the old place.”
Mrs Waldron was silent for a moment.
“It seems too much,” he said again. “I don’t deserve it,” her husband went on.
This gave her power to speak.
“You not deserve it!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Edward, could a man deserve it more? How you have toiled, how you have kept up your spirits through all! ”

“ Claudia’s Home. The Rectory at Britton-Garnett was one of those picturesque, tempting-looking, old cottage-like houses which, seen in summer by a passer-by, embowered in greenery and roses, remain in the memory as a sort of little earthly paradise. And its inhabitants, who loved it well in spite of its imperfections, would have accepted the verdict without much protest.
“It is a sweet little place,” Mrs Meredon would say, “and for rich people it might really be made almost perfect. But with these old houses, you see, there seems always something that wants doing or repairing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.”
“I wish it were going to be still more different,” said Lady Mildred. “I wish I could help you all more effectually; but—”
“Dear Aunt Mildred, you couldn’t have helped us more effectually,” said Claudia, her eyes beaming. “We don’t want to be rich, even if you had a fortune to leave us, we couldn’t wish to be happier than we shall be when I am quite grown-up and able to begin my school, as mamma calls it. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ But any room which is the ordinary resort of four boys and a girl, not to speak of occasional inroads from two “nursery children,” cannot be expected to look as if no one lived in it.
“We are invisibly tidy,” the Waldron boys used to say with a certain pride. “We do know where our things are, and the cupboards and drawers are really not messy at all. But of course we can’t rig boats, and oil skates, and paint, and carve, and all that, without the room showing it. Not to speak of Ted’s stamp-album, and Arthur’s autographs, and all, our lessons at night.” ”

“ It was easy for Claudia to slip in unperceived, for her aunt was not expecting her, and did not even raise her eyes when the door opened, and the slight clatter that always accompanies cups and saucers announced the arrival of the tea.
“Tell Crossley to come in a few minutes to take Miss Meredon’s tea up-stairs,” said Lady Mildred, not knowing that the footman had already left the room, and that the movements she still heard were made by Claudia, safely ensconced behind the tray, and laughing quietly to herself. In another minute a voice close beside her made the old lady start. ”

“ With such his sarcasm was scathing, his fury sometimes almost ungovernable; the veins on his forehead would start out like cords, his blue eyes would flash fire, he would dash from one language to the other of the nine of which he was “past master,” as if seeking everywhere some relief for his uncontrollable irritation, till in the minds of the more intelligent and sympathising of his pupils all other feeling would be merged in actual pity for the man. Scenes of such violence were of course rare, though it was seldom that a lesson passed without some growls as of thunder in the distance. ”

“ You must not get to take such a gloomy view of things.”
“I don’t mean to be discontented, mamma,” said Charlotte.
“Well, dear, try and get over it. You will have to meet many people in life apparently more favoured and fortunate than you. Perhaps things have in some ways been too smooth for you, Charlotte.”
“Mamma, I am not so selfish as you think. It is not only for myself I’d like some things to be different. Besides, I am old enough now to know that you and papa have a great deal of anxiety. Do you think I only care for myself, mamma?” ”

“ I detest impertinent little chatterboxes of children. But you’re not a child now, Claudia, and you have plenty of sense and knowledge in your head; you are quite able to talk very intelligently and agreeably if you choose. I only hope you are not going to turn into a book-worm. Are you working too hard?”
“No, aunt, I don’t think so,” said Claudia. “And you know how I enjoy my lessons. And the teaching at Miss Lloyd’s is really very interesting.” ”

“ Jerry replied.
“And we two are to dine with you and mamma instead of Arthur and Ted,” added Charlotte.
“All right, my dear, but don’t keep us waiting. I have to go out immediately after dinner,” her father replied.
“How tiresome it must be for papa to be sent for like that!” said Charlotte. “I think a lawyer—at least a lawyer in a little town like Wortherham—is almost as badly off as a doctor. I suppose some old gentleman fancies he’s going to die, and has sent for papa to make his will.” ”

“ 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? ”

“ Ivy, too, grew thickly over one end of the building, veiling with its kindly green shadow what had once been an unsightly disproportion of wall; the windows were all latticed, and a broad terrace walk ran round three sides of the house, while here and there on the smooth, close-cut lawn just below stood out, dark and stiff, grotesquely-cut shrubs which had each had its own special designation handed down from one generation to another. ”