Chapter One
Charlotte and Jerry
The school-room at Number 19, Norfolk Terrace, was not, it must be confessed, a particularly attractive room. To begin with, it looked out upon the little garden at the back of the house, and this same little garden was not much to look out upon. The modest, old-fashioned name of “green” would have suited it better. Some of the gardens of the neighbouring houses were really pretty and well cared for, but Mrs Waldron had long ago decided that to attempt making of “our garden” anything but a playground while the boys were still “such mere boys,” so irrepressibly full of high spirits and mischief, would be but to add another and unnecessary care to the long list of household matters which she found already quite as much as she could manage. So the garden remained the green, and the school-room the plain, rather untidy-looking room it had always been. It was not really untidy – a radical foundation of order and arrangement was insisted upon. 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.”
“Yes, that’s all very fine,” Charlotte would reply. “But if it wasn’t for Jerry and me I wonder how long you would all know where your things were, and how long the cupboards and drawers would pass mamma’s inspections!”
Whereupon would ensue a series of “Of course, dear Charlotte” cries, and “You are awfully good, we know” cries – for the three elder boys knew that it would be a very bad look-out indeed for them if their sister were to relax in her constant efforts in their behalf.
“And really if it weren’t for Jerry, I don’t think I could keep on tidying for them so,” Charlotte would sometimes say. 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. But they added their share, no doubt, to all that had to be done and thought of, though Charlotte often looked forward with prospective envy to the pleasant life that would be theirs when they came to her age.
“You are pretty sure to be out in the world by then, Jerry,” she said to him one day, “and I, if I am not married, shall be quite an old maid – a sort of second mother to Amy and Marion. Think how nice and quiet and regular the house will be! I do think a large family is dreadful.”
“But mamma says we don’t know how dull it is to be an only child like she was,” Jerry objected.
“As she was – do talk grammar,” said Charlotte. “I don’t care – I should have liked to be an only child – or perhaps to have had just one brother like you, Jerry. Just think what a nice life we would have had! But I mustn’t talk any more. I must copy out my literature notes. When I have finished them, Jerry, I will tell you something if you remind me.”
The two had the school-room to themselves for once, which was the more remarkable as it was Saturday afternoon, and not a summer Saturday afternoon, nor yet a mid-winter frosty day, when Arthur, Ted, and Noble would have been safe to be off skating. It was a late September afternoon, dull and gloomy and already chilly. The rain had held off, however, fortunately, for the elder boys had for some days been planning a long country walk, to finish up with tea at the house of a schoolfellow, who lived a couple of miles out of the town.
“What a dreary day it is!” Charlotte began again, looking up from her notes. “I wish we might have a fire,” and she shivered a little.
“I dare say we might,” said Jerry, starting up. “Shall I ask mamma?”
“No,” Charlotte decided. “We shall be in the drawing-room all the evening. I’ve nearly done. I know mamma is glad not to give the servants anything extra to do on Saturdays. And they haven’t got into the way of regular winter fires yet. I wonder if it isn’t any brighter out in the country to-day than it is here.”
“Hardly, I should say,” Jerry answered, as he glanced out of the window. “Still it would be nicer than here. I wish we had a pony-carriage, Charlotte – think what jolly drives we might have. Those woods out Gretham way where the boys have gone must be nice even to-day,” and Jerry gave a little sigh. He could not walk far, and Wortherham, though not a very large town, was partly a manufacturing one, and large enough therefore to be somewhat grim and smoky, and to make one long for the freshness and clearness of country air.
