Silverbeach Manor (9 page)

The last words
are spoken softly, then he adds with a flush, "I ought not to put
such a work on personal grounds. A grander motive than kindness to
a friend is the thought that you will be doing something for Him
whose care and love and Divine compassion yearn over these
neglected little ones."

"
I will do what I can," says Pansy in a broken
voice. Nobody has spoken to her personally of the Master since she
bade farewell to Aunt Temperance. She goes back into the drawing
room with a heart ill at ease. She feels she is deceiving Marlow
Holme in permitting him to picture her as Pansy Adair, the niece
whom the mistress of Silverbeach has brought up from childhood. But
the shop -- the shop
must
be
buried in oblivion. After all, she
is
to Mrs. Adair as a niece, and everybody has
forgotten that Silverbeach was not always her home.

May
Thornden calls upon them to write in her "confessional album," and
Marlow Holme obediently takes pen in hand. Pansy's smile is a
little forced, as she notices that he writes
Deceit in any shape or form
against
the bidding to "Name your pet aversion."

A Little Maid

MRS.
ADAIR is horrified
at first by the
idea
of Pansy's entering a ragged school. She predicts scarlet fever,
smallpox, and skin complaints, and Pansy has to bring her most
urgent coaxing and persuasive powers to bear before her guardian
will allow her to devote one evening a week to the Masden
enterprise.

"You will tire
of it in a month," she says, when her reluctant permission is
obtained. "Charities are fashionable just now, but the mania never
lasts long. Mind you take plenty of camphor, toilet vinegar, and
lavender, and on no account go too near the children."

So the
luxurious carriage and the liveried servants and the two elegant
bays take Pansy over to Masden, and form quite a Lord Mayor's Show
in the estimation of the excited lads and lassies waiting round the
ragged school.

Then the
equipage, with several boys hanging resolutely behind, moves off to
the hotel stables and Pansy enters the schoolroom where Marlow
Holme welcomes her with his eyes even more than his lips, and
speedily introduces her to her class.

"My sakes,
ain't she got nice clothes!" is the exclamation that greets her
entrance. Then a small child complains, "Teacher, Bobby's been and
took my sugar dolly," and a daring-looking boy who has brought
fireworks, challenges Pansy to put him out of the room.

"There
ain't no teacher in this here place as I couldn't wallop with one
hand, so there, miss!" he exclaims defiantly.
"
Nobody ain't a-going to put
me
out, they ain't. I'd just like to see them
try it on."

His wish is
speedily gratified by prompt ejection by means of Marlow Holme.
After ten minutes or so he is led back in a state of quietude
broken only by a peppermint sucked at intervals. Several of the
children belong to barges, and are uneducated in every way. They
are provided with reading books, and Pansy has a blackboard, but it
is impossible for her to get any sort of order until the happy
thought occurs to her that she will sing to them. At that moment
they all become mute in intense expectation.

"Sing 'Poll
on, dark stream', teacher," suggests a mite, eagerly.

"I do not know
it at all," says Pansy.

"Oh!
Don't you, teacher?
We
knows it, we
does;" and soon the scholars are singing, "Roll on, dark stream, we
fear not thy foam; The pilgrim is longing for Home, sweet
home."

"Let's
have 'Sowing the seeds',
"
demands
another. Then the boy with the peppermint requests, "We all got
mixed, And had a jolly spree."

Pansy is
shocked, but she soon finds the children are impressed by the
tunes, whatever the words, and the boy who is able to whistle, "We
all got mixed" so tunefully turns out to be a Band of Hope child in
Marlow Holme's society.

"
Does you know 'Glory, glory, glory'?" queries a
blue-eyed lassie in a pink sun bonnet.

Yes, Pansy
remembers that hymn. Many a time has she sung it at Aunt
Temperance's knee, as well as in the old Sunday school at
Polesheaton. She had intended singing them her favourite song, "The
Lost Chord", but at the child's request she begins the hymn,
"Around the throne of God in Heaven," and the tune and words are
full for herself of memories of the past.

Marlow Holme,
who has come in to bring her chalk for the board, wonders at the
far-away, troubled look in her eyes. He congratulates her on what
she is doing, pats a few of the children on the head, and returns
to his carpentry class. Pansy is bright enough to be a brisk,
animated teacher, and the reading class is far from a discouraging
one, though several of the children are inclined to be
argumentative and conversational.

"Please,
teacher, come again," cry the boys and girls as the bell sounds for
instruction to cease.

Marlow Holme
echoes the words, coming in to open the sliding doors which divide
Pansy's classroom from the hall. "Please, teacher, come again."

"I like
it very much," says Pansy, flushing and smiling. "It
is
such a change from dinners, dances and
tennis. I always
did
like barge people,
They are so dreamy, and gliding, and soothing."

"Well,
we must teach them to
do more than
dream," he answers. "Now we have our closing Bible reading,
the Lord's Prayer, and a hymn before school is
dismissed."

The mission
has now started a Sunday school, but every evening a few Bible
verses and a hymn wind up the proceedings. The children shout,
"There's a Friend for little children," but the flatness of a voice
here and there, and the general tendency to drawl and sing too
lustily cannot rob from Pansy's heart the sacredness of their hymn.
She too learned to sing those words in her childhood, when their
truth was near and dear to her.

Her lonely
drive back to Silverbeach is a very thoughtful one, yet amid the
sadness of her meditations there is an undercurrent of happiness
that she scarcely understands. Mrs. Adair, half asleep on the
lounge, is startled by the new element of brightness that enters
with Pansy.

"Why, child,"
she exclaims, "this new fancy of teaching dirty children seems to
agree with you. Novelty is charming, but I must say it is a strange
sort of taste. Pray go and bathe your face and hands in water with
aromatic vinegar and disinfecting soap before you play to me this
evening. I have always had such a terror of catching smallpox."

It would
astonish Pansy's guardian could she discern that the evenings at
the ragged school become far dearer than any of the numerous
entertainments to which she is invited. Her heart is glad with the
sense of usefulness arid helpfulness to her fellow creatures, and
she learns to prize the affection of the boys and girls who are so
troublesome oftentimes, yet so warm-hearted, merry, and loving.

Once or twice
Mrs. Adair has required the carriage elsewhere, and then Pansy
comes home by train, escorted to the station by Marlow Holme who
waits with her on the platform and sees her comfortably into the
train. He says no word to her that others might not overhear, but
those quiet moments when they pace the platform together in the
starlight are memorable to both.

"He never
forgets I am Miss Adair, of Silverbeach, and he is only a poor
writer living in London lodgings," thinks Pansy sometimes with a
half smile, for there are ways and means, she remembers, whereby
her heiress-lot can let the poor writer understand he need not
wholly despair of favour and success.

Mrs. Adair is
much interested just now in the plans an eminent architect is
preparing for her of a villa she is proposing to build in the South
of France. She much prefers living abroad to England, and
attributes her ill health to the climate of her native land. She
proposes to spend a great deal of money upon her romantic
residence, and decides to shut up Silverbeach next year, and in the
end to try and let it.

Pansy's heart
sinks unaccountably at the prospect of living abroad, but as
regards Mrs. Adair's decision she knows she may venture so far and
no farther, so she has to resign herself to travelling with what
grace she finds possible.

Despite
her invalidism, Mrs. Adair feels she must take upon herself the
management of the reception committee at an event for which the
most elaborate preparations have been made around Silverbeach. This
is a floral
fete
in aid of a new
tennis-club, and Royalty has consented to open the proceedings. All
the fashionable world of the neighbourhood is in a ferment of
excitement. Pansy, as a satin-skirted shepherdess, will preside in
the rose tent, and Mrs. Adair sends for a milliner from a Regent
Street shop to devise for herself a new and most becoming bonnet. A
military band is engaged, bewitching costumes are planned, fruit
and flowers and dainty knick-knacks are profusely offered, and the
occasion is altogether too magnificent and exclusive for Mrs. Adair
to be absent.

"You and Miss
Pansy looks like sisters, ma'am," says the maid to Mrs. Adair,
adjusting the lace on the filmy costume, "except that you has the
advantage as to figure. The terracotta trimmings do throw up your
complexion wonderful, ma'am, and the rosebuds fastening of your
bonnet just gives the whole a finish."

Mrs. Adair
surveys herself complacently, knowing that her costume and her
appearance will form a society paragraph in several journals. And
her heart swells with pride as she notices how bright and
happy-looking her beautiful charge has grown of late, and how
becoming to Pansy are the rose pink ribbons on her crook, her
low-cut bodice, and broad hat of rich satin.

"We are
quite a success," she thinks as they drive off to the
fete.
There were many years of her
wealth-crowned life when she deemed existence a failure, but now
that a young, fair life belongs to her and brings new sunshine into
her days, things do not seem quite so dreary to her tired
eyes.

Royalty
is late, and suspense and excitement are on tiptoe by the time the
band strikes up the National Anthem. Then all is brilliance,
graciousness, exclusiveness; those in the inner circle swell
inwardly with elation; those on the fringe of that circle
experience throbs of jealousy and dissatisfaction. Mrs. Adair and
Pansy have honoured places all through, and Pansy is chosen to
present roses as expensive as can be procured to the distinguished
visitors. It is when the refined festivities are at their height,
and Pansy's roses are universally in request, while the girl's own
thoughts are away from the
fete
in
certain quiet London rooms, that Mrs. Adair feels suddenly unwell,
and asks a gentleman to find her carriage.

"I will send
it back later on for Pansy," she says. "Do not spoil her enjoyment.
I am only a little tired."

During the
homeward drive she feels stranger still, and on reaching
Silverbeach she asks the coachman to call at her doctor's and bring
him, if possible, to the Manor. Some years ago, she had a serious
attack of haemorrhage, which is always her secret dread when out of
sorts.

Evasive
answers are returned by the footman when she asks for her maid. The
annoyance increases her anxiety, and it turns out that her own maid
and two of the housemaids, believing her absence certain for
several hours, have taken the opportunity to patronize a
neighbouring circus, and are not expected home to the servants'
tea.

The third
housemaid, Lizzie Russell, a timid-looking little maid, who is
deeply in awe of her grand place and fashionable mistress, appears
tremblingly when summoned. Seeing Mrs. Adair is ill, the shyness
disappears, and she proves an apt nurse, removing the elaborate
costume and assisting her mistress to lie down, deftly, calmly, and
gently.

In an hour or
two Pansy sends home a note saying Lady Grace Summit has persuaded
her to sleep at Summit Grange that night, and requesting her things
may be sent on. Nobody replies, for Silverbeach Manor is in a state
of confusion and fear. Mrs. Adair is prostrate with haemorrhage of
the lungs, and the doctor, who had laid his veto upon her against
excitement and exhaustion, has sent for a physician and seems to
think the case most critical. Mrs. Adair's own maid is back by this
time, frightened and solicitous, but her mistress motions her away
and signs for Lizzie Russell to remain. The quiet, calm movements
seem a comfort to her, Lizzie having learnt by long nursing a sick
mother how cruel to a sufferer would be any show of nervousness or
hysteria in the attendant.

"A trained
nurse will be here in the morning. You and I will take charge
tonight," says the doctor to Lizzie, and she quietly agrees, but
before the daylight dawns there is no need for any more anxious
watching, tender ministrations, hope or fear.

At first
they spoke of sending for Pansy, but while Mrs. Adair had strength
to speak she told them not to stop the girl's pleasure -- it was
only a passing illness -- her constitution was marvellous, and she
would be at the
fete
again before it
closed. Pansy was to be summoned on no account whatever because her
nerves were far from strong, and she need not hear of the illness
till Mrs. Adair felt better.