Mr Waldron looked round him helplessly. He had spoken thoughtlessly, for even the wisest of us cannot be always on our guard. He had been half asleep, to tell the truth, when Charlotte first roused him by her question, for he had had a hard day’s work, and had driven some distance in the cold, and the arm-chair by the fire was very comfortable. He was wide awake now, however, and very much at a loss what to say. He had always, for reasons understood by his wife, avoided allusions to Silverthorns or the Osbert family; but of late, circumstances had seemed to force the place and its inhabitants upon the young Waldrons’ notice; and if he tried to back out of what he had said, it would probably only whet the interest and curiosity he deprecated. Better tell simply, and as it were unconsciously, what there was to tell.
“My dears, indeed there is nothing to interest you,” he said. “You know the legend—I told it to you the other day—that a long-ago Osbert had behaved very unjustly and cruelly, and that his spirit is supposed to be unable to rest on that account. Well—”
“But, papa,” said Arthur, “excuse me for interrupting you, but I was thinking over the story. I don’t see that it was so very wrong of him to wish the place to remain in the family—I mean to be owned by Osberts. It is the feeling everybody has.”
Mr Waldron smiled. It amused him to see the eldest son sentiment in Arthur, though he was heir to nothing.
“I quite agree with you,” he said. “But you forget—he was really cruel, for he left his poor daughter utterly penniless, in reality to gratify the spite he had always had against her. He carried his family pride a little too far, surely? Besides, he was a hard and unfeeling landlord.”
“Oh, yes,” said Arthur, “I forgot. Of course he might have looked after his daughter without letting the place go out of the family. And what did you say was the prophecy, papa?—that he should be punished by Silverthorns going in the female line after all, isn’t it? That has never come to pass yet—there have always been Osberts there?”
“Yes; the legend is, that the unhappy ghost shall never rest till the descendants of a daughter of the house own the place. It came near it once many years ago. The then squire had only a sister, and though the place had always been left in the male line, her grandson—her son was dead—would have succeeded, failing male Osberts, had not a cousin who had not been heard of for many years turned up. He was an old man, who had been most of his life in Australia, and he never came home to enjoy his inheritance. But he had two sons: one became the squire, and did very well for himself, by marrying Lady Mildred Meredon, for she is a clever and capable woman, and he would never have left things in as good order as he did but for her. The other son is now General Osbert.”
“But, papa,” said Charlotte, whose quick wits had taken in all he said, “if the place always goes to Osberts, it must be all nonsense about Lady Mildred’s intending to leave it to this Miss Meredon, as everybody will say.”
“I don’t know,” said her father. “There have been rumours that Lady Mildred is perfectly free to do as she likes with it, others that she is bound by some arrangement to leave it to the Osberts, and that in reality she only has it for her life. Either may be true. Mr Osbert and his brother were not very friendly, and General Osbert needed money. Perhaps he was satisfied with some help from his brother during his life. And the squire was much attached to his wife, and owed much to her. She may be able to leave it to her own people. But even if not, it doesn’t matter—General Osbert has sons,” he added, as if thinking aloud.
“Papa!” exclaimed Charlotte almost indignantly, “how can you say it doesn’t matter? I think it would be the most unfair, unnatural thing to leave an old, old place like that to people who have nothing to do with it.”