“What girl? – what do you know about it?” said Mr Waldron, rather sharply.
But Charlotte was not easily disconcerted, especially when very much in earnest.
“A girl she has adopted. They say she is going to leave this girl all her money, so she – the girl – will be a great heiress. And she is awfully pretty, and – and – just everything. I heard all about it this morning at school,” and Charlotte went on to give her father the details she had learnt through the French governess’s gossip. “She is to drive herself in every morning in her pony-carriage, except if it rains, and then she is to be sent and fetched in the brougham. Fancy her having a pony-carriage all of her own!”
Mr Waldron listened without interrupting her. He understood better than before his little daughter’s sudden curiosity about Silverthorns and Lady Mildred, and her incipient discontent. But all he said was:
“Ah, well, poor child! It is to be hoped she will be happy there.”
“Papa, can you doubt it?” exclaimed Charlotte.
“Papa isn’t at all sure if Lady Mildred will be very good to her, whether she makes her her heiress or not,” said Jerry bluntly.
“I don’t say that, Jerry,” said his father. “I don’t know Lady Mildred well enough to judge. I said, on the contrary, I had known of her doing kind things, which is true.”
“Papa only said Lady Mildred wasn’t a woman like mamma,” said Charlotte. “She might well not be that, and yet be very good and kind. Of course we are more lucky than any children in having mamma, but still if one has everything else – ”
“One could do without a good mother? Nay, my Gipsy, I can’t – ”
“Papa, papa, I don’t mean that – you know I don’t,” exclaimed Charlotte, almost in tears.
“No, I know you don’t really. But even putting mamma out of the question, I doubt if Lady Mildred – however, it is not our place to pass judgment.”
Suddenly Charlotte gave a little scream.
“Jerry, don’t. How can you, Jerry?”
“What’s the matter?” asked Mr Waldron.
“He pinched me, papa, quite sharply, under my cloak,” said Charlotte, a little ashamed of her excitement. “Jerry, how can you be so babyish?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said Jerry penitently. “It was only – when papa said that – I thought – there’s another thing.”
“Has the moonlight affected your brain, Jerry?” asked his father.
“No, papa; Charlotte understands. I thought perhaps she’d rather I didn’t say it right out. It makes three things, you see – being stupid – and perhaps the haunted room and Lady Mildred being horrid to her. You see, Charlotte?”
But Mr Waldron’s face – what they could see of it, that is to say, for the clouds seemed to be reassembling in obedience to some invisible summons, and a thick dark one, just at that moment, was beginning to veil the moon’s fair disc – expressed unmitigated bewilderment.
“He means what we were talking about this afternoon, papa. Jerry, you are too silly to tell it in that muddled way,” said Charlotte, laughing in spite of her irritation. “I said it seemed as if that girl had everything, and Jerry thinks nobody has. He said perhaps she’s not very clever, and it’s true one kind of pretty people are generally rather dull; and perhaps there’s a haunted room at Silverthorns, and she may be frightened at night; and now he means that perhaps Lady Mildred isn’t really very kind. But they’re all perhapses.”
“One isn’t,” said Mr Waldron. “There is a haunted room at Silverthorns – that, I have always known. If the poor girl is nervous, let us hope she doesn’t sleep near it! As to her being ‘dull’ – no, I doubt it. She hasn’t the kind of large, heavy, striking beauty which goes with dullness.”
“Papa, you have seen her,” exclaimed Charlotte in great excitement. “And you didn’t tell us.”
“You didn’t give me time, truly and really, Charlotte.”
“And what is she like? Oh, papa, do tell me.”
“I only saw her for an instant. Her aunt sent her out of the room. She did seem to me very pretty, slight, and not very tall, with a face whose actual beauty was thrown into the shade by its extremely winning and bright and varying expression. All that, I saw, but that was all.”
“Is she fair or dark?” asked Charlotte. “You must have seen that.”
“Fair, of course. You know my beauties are always fair. That is why I am so disappointed in you, poor Gipsy,” said Mr Waldron teasingly.
But Charlotte did not laugh as she would usually have done.
“Charlotte,” said Jerry reprovingly, “of course papa’s in fun. Mamma is darker than you.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that papa’s in fun,” said Charlotte snappishly. “Besides, mamma isn’t dark, except her hair and eyes – her skin is lovelily white. There’s nothing fair about me, except my stupid light-blue eyes.”
“My blue-eyed gipsy,” said her father, using a pet name that had been hers as a baby.
“Dear papa,” said Charlotte; and the sharpness had all gone out of her voice.
They were almost at home by now. There had not been much temptation to look about them in returning, for the clouds were getting the best of it, and the moon had taken offence and was hiding her face.
“My little girl,” whispered her father, as he lifted her down, “beware of the first peep through the green-coloured spectacles.”
“Papa!” said Charlotte, half reproachfully.
But I think she understood.
“Jerry,” she said, as her brother and she stood waiting at the door, their father having driven round to the stables, “just compare this door, this house, with Silverthorns.”
“What’s the good?” said Jerry.
Chapter Three
A Family Party
A hearty but somewhat unnecessarily noisy welcome awaited them. Arthur, Ted, and Noble were all in the drawing-room with their mother. She had insisted on the muddy boots being discarded, but beyond this, as the boys were tired, and it was late when they came in, she had not held out; and Charlotte glanced at the rough coats and lounging-about attitudes with a feeling of annoyance, which it was well “the boys” did not see. “Mamma” herself was always a pleasant object to look upon, even in her old black grenadine; she, thought Charlotte, with a throb of pride, could not seem out of place in the most beautiful of the Silverthorns’ drawing-rooms. But the boys – how can they be so rough and messy? thought the fastidious little sister.
“It is all with being poor – all,” she said to herself.
But she felt ashamed when Arthur drew forward the most comfortable chair for her to the fire, and Ted offered to carry her hat and jacket up-stairs for her.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll run up-stairs, and be down again in a minute. It’s messy to take one’s things off in the drawing-room,” and so saying, she jumped up and ran away.
“What a fuss Charlotte always makes about being messy, as she calls it,” said Ted. “She’s a regular old maid.”
“Come, Ted, that’s not fair. It’s not only for herself Charlotte’s tidy!” Arthur exclaimed.
“No, indeed,” said Noble, chiming in.
“You needn’t all set upon me like that,” said Ted. “I’m sure I always thank her when she