Silverbeach Manor

by Margaret S. Haycraft



  About this Book

  England, 1891. Pansy is an orphan who is cared for by her aunt, Temperance Piper, who keeps the village post office and store. One day Pansy meets wealthy Mrs. Adair who offers to take her under her wing and give her a life of wealth in high society that she could never dream of, on condition Pansy never revisits her past life. When they first meet, Mrs. Adair says about Pansy's clothes, "The style is a little out of date, but it is good enough for the country. I should like to see you in a really well-made dress. It would be quite a new sensation for you, if you really belong to these wilds. I have a crimson and gold tea gown that would suit you delightfully, and make you quite a treasure for an artist." This is a story of rags to riches to ... well, to a life where nothing is straightforward.

  Silverbeach Manor

  Margaret S. Haycraft

  1855-1936

  Abridged Edition

  This abridged edition ©Chris Wright 2016

  e-Book ISBN: 978-0-9935005-4-1

  Original book first published 1891

  Published by

  White Tree Publishing

  Bristol

  UNITED KINGDOM

  wtpbristol@gmail.com

  Silverbeach Manor is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this abridged edition.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About White Tree Publishing

  More Books from White Tree Publishing

  Christian non-fiction

  Christian Fiction

  Books for Younger Readers

  Introduction

  Margaret Scott Haycraft was a contemporary of the much better known Christian writer Mrs. O. F. Walton. Both ladies wrote Christian stories for children that were very much for the time in which they lived, with little children often preparing for an early death. Mrs. Walton wrote three romances for adults (with no suffering children, and now published by White Tree in abridged versions). Margaret Haycraft also concentrated mainly on books for children. However, Silverbeach Manor is a romance for older readers. Unusually for Victorian writers, the majority of Margaret Haycraft's stories are told in the present tense.

  Both Mrs. Walton's and Margaret Haycraft's books for all ages can be over-sentimental, referring throughout, for example, to a mother as a dear, sweet mother, and a child as the darling little child. In this abridged edition overindulgent descriptions of people have been shortened to make a more robust story, but the characters and storyline are unchanged.

  A problem of Victorian writers is the tendency to insert intrusive comments concerning what is going to happen later in the story. Today we call them spoilers. They are usually along the lines of: "Little did he/she know that..." I have removed most of these, although there is one that I think is important to the enjoyment of the story.

  When a gift of five pounds sterling is made in 1891 it may not sound much, but in income value it is worth over 3,500 pounds today. I mention this in case the giver sounds mean!

  Margaret Scott Haycraft (1855-1936) also wrote under her maiden name of Margaret MacRitchie. The original unedited story of Silverbeach Manor, and some of Margaret's other books, are available from at least one publisher as recent paperbacks. There are plans for White Tree to publish two more abridged eBook romances by Margaret Haycraft -- Gildas Haven and Amaranth's Garden.

  Chris Wright

  Editor

  Chapter 1

  Polesheaton Post Office.

  "A WONDERFUL little town Polesheaton used to be," the locals say, shaking their heads with a sigh for Polesheaton's bygone glory. "As many as three coaches a day went through the place then, and what with changing horses and lunching at the Tatlocks' Arms, and something always wanting to be done at the smithy, and the guard bringing the landlord last week's London papers, Polesheaton were always in a bustle in them good old times."

  Another elderly Polesheatonite takes up the lament. "The Tatlocks lived at The Grange in them days, and every afternoon some of them would be ordering something at the shops. Trades folks could live in them days, bless you. Them new-fangled stores up in London town weren't so much as thought of. Ah, Polesheaton has gone down since good King George were on the throne."

  Some think railways have been the root of Polesheaton's decay, others attribute the change to the telegraph wires now crossing the fields and roads, while the landlord of the Tatlocks' Arms puts the blame on the Good Templars temperance society.

  Be the cause what it may, Polesheaton prosperity is on the wane, and nobody knows that better than the trades people in the High Street -- once busy with coaches and carriages, for water in the old well in The Grange garden was then popularly esteemed medicinal. The small town is now chiefly the promenade of bullocks, sheep, and their attendant keepers.

  A few miles off, on the railway line, the town of Firlands has sprung into existence -- new, lively, attractive. Elegant houses are dotted here and there among the trees, while the shops in the Parade show more than one well-known London name. There is a luxurious reading room, in front of which the local board has erected a bandstand. How can little Polesheaton hold its own against its magnificent neighbour?

  "What a funny little place!" say the visitors from Firlands, who now and then drive through. "What a quaint, old-fashioned, forsaken little town! Good gracious, is that the post office?"

  Yes, it is, and the little post office is large enough for Polesheaton requirements. Government transactions are carried on in a corner of the little general shop, where Miss Temperance Piper sells sealing wax, spelling books, acid drops, notepaper, candles, and anything likely to yield a modest profit. Miss Piper is postmistress, Sunday school teacher, and a good friend to the poor. Nobody in Polesheaton is more respected than the spinster whose father and grandfather before her presided in the dingy little shop, with the gabled roof, and the swallows flying in and out above the door.

  Today Miss Piper is not often seen in the shop. The little thirteen-year-old maid-of-all-work, Deborah, is hemming an apron behind the counter and selling the occasional stamp, a packet of pins, and even a sheet of notepaper at rare intervals, wondering now and then why Miss Piper should be walking about in her bedroom upstairs with such agitated steps. Deborah decides her mistress must have toothache, and wishes Miss Pansy would come in so that something could be got from the chemist's.

  "But Miss Pansy gets dreaming in the woods," remembers Deborah, "and she ain't likely to get home afore her tea. 'Tis dull indoors for a beautiful young lady like Miss Pansy who seems quite grown up now she is sixteen years old."

  Meanwhile, Temperance Piper continued her walking upstairs, her concerns for the future very much on her mind. When christened Temperance by fond parents, Mr. and Mrs. Piper of revered memory doubtless had visions of their daughter growing up as the embodiment of all that is calm, peaceful, self-contained, prudent, and unruffled. By right of her name, Miss Piper should have a mind at ease and a snug little investment in the savings
bank. But rates and taxes and the necessity of paying the wholesaler that supplies her shop, and the problem of keeping her own head and Pansy's above water for a succession of poorly paid years, have conspired to wrinkle the calm of the spinster's brow, and have put some grey hairs among the brown locks beneath her neat little cap.

  This morning the last straw seemed to have fallen in the shape of the lodger's notice to leave. An old bachelor brother of Parmer Sotham's has for some time occupied the two best rooms, but he objects to Pansy's violin, and after long murmurings he has packed his belongings for departure.

  "And to think anyone should have the heart to discourage Pansy, when even the organist at the church says her touch is wonderful," Miss Piper thinks indignantly. And then comes back the problem, "How can I add to my income?"

  Pansy has music pupils, but only the children of the villagers, and they can pay very little. Pansy needs the small amount of pocket money earned in this way for her clothes and books and music. "Pansy is a lady," Miss Piper thinks proudly, "and she looks as fine as Miss Adelaide Tatlock herself -- the one that married Sir Patrick Moreton -- when she goes out in her dove-coloured dress, with the pretty gold chain that was her mother's. Pansy mustn't be allowed to worry about old Mr. Sotham's going. She would cry her eyes out if she knew how hard it is to get along. I am sure nobody could eat less than I do.

  "Give me my tea and toast, and I'm satisfied. And Deborah isn't one of the wasteful sort either. I've never regretted taking that child from the Union workhouse, but somehow we can't keep our heads above water. Suppose I do try Mr. Lade's advice? Ever so many do in Firlands; and they say there's a good profit. After all, somebody else will if I don't."

  Miss Piper sinks upon the worn patchwork quilt that was her grandmother's, and wrings her hands in perplexity. Her cap falls a little to one side, and the side-combs loose in the prim, brown curls; but there is One who sees and knows that in that there is going on a conflict between conscience and expediency -- a battle between duty and temptation that will make the hour memorable through all her life.

  It seems but a little matter after all. A travelling book agent wants her to open her window for novelettes --halfpenny and penny dreadfuls -- for which he tells her there is a great and increasing demand, and on which he guarantees her a satisfactory profit. The villagers around Polesheaton would be sure to come for the next number if they once began the exciting adventures of Pedro van Mazeppo, the heroic boy brigand, or the romantic history of the lovely dairymaid who marries the baron.

  Temperance Piper has had some of these numbers to look over, but she likes neither the pictures nor the contents. More than once she has declined the agent's advice to thus increasing her income. She has a fair sale already for pure and innocent stories -- papers cheery at the fireside but harmless to the soul, and she has always set her face against over-sensational literature. Yet her poor, thin purse seems week by week to contain less and less, and Pansy has grown older now, with ever-increasing needs.

  She is even more painfully conscious than Pansy herself that the girl's boots need to be soled and heeled. Her last winter's jacket is patched at the elbows, and the straw of her dark-brown hat is frayed. Temperance thinks it is a shame for Pansy to have to go about so shabbily clad when all Polesheaton calls her so pretty.

  "Those novelettes might bring people into the shop," she thinks, doubtfully, "and then they might get their groceries here, instead of going on to Mr. Greggs' down town. I should not wonder if Mr. Greggs takes to selling novelettes presently as an attraction. Mr. Lade says Mrs. Price sells all the most exciting stories over at Fir Heath, and her husband is a churchwarden -- they are most respectable people. Surely there can be no harm in doing what Mrs. Price does."

  Then comes to Aunt Temperance the memory of her class of young girls in the Sunday school, guided by her influence, looking to her for helpful counsel and a Christian example. She thinks of the boys in the school Sunday after Sunday, with hearts impressionable for good or for evil. Shall she fill the minds of those growing girls with the notion that to be courted by the aristocracy is womanhood's noblest ambition? Shall she be the means of leading those boys to believe that highway robbery or piracy represents true courage and heroism and intrepidity?

  "It is very difficult to know what to do for the best," she sighs. "We are so miserably poor, and things look so bad in Polesheaton. There is old Mr. Sotham giving up the rooms today, and the agent calling with the novelettes this afternoon. I think I will sell them for a month or so, not as a regular thing, but just to bring custom into the shop. Then, when I can do a little better with the grocery and stationery, then I will make a clean sweep of such papers out of my place."

  So the window is filled that afternoon with sensational covers that fascinate a throng of young people hanging round Miss Piper's window, and the shop does a brisk trade in cheap "dreadfuls" day after day. Pansy becomes absorbed in the fortunes of a girl in circumstances as humble as her own, who is wooed under most romantic circumstances by "a noble-looking stranger with liquid dark eyes." Somehow Aunt Temperance does not find as much opportunity for private prayer as before -- does not "steal away to Jesus," as was her wont from the little dark shop and the counter sometimes.

  ***

  Months have rolled by, and it is the bright autumn weather when the trees around Polesheaton are a mass of vivid colouring, from the bright gold of the chestnut to wondrous shades of pink, and crimson that burns like fire. The Grange garden, full of magnificent old trees, is a marvel to behold. Part of the garden runs along the High Street, and only a high wall divides it from Miss Temperance Piper's humble little plot where she grows her marigolds and lavender and sweet herbs.

  Close to this wall is a friendly tree, and all her life long Pansy has loved, by using its branches, to seat herself on the dividing wall and gaze upon the magic grounds which seem to her like Fairyland.

  Wonderful people have come and gone from The Grange. It belongs to Sir Patrick Moreton now, and he is a foreign ambassador, so the old Grange is occasionally let furnished to those recommended country rest, though everyone gets tired of it and wonders how the residents of Polesheaton manage to exist at all.

  Pansy is inclined to ask the same impatient question this bright autumn day as she sits on the wall and peruses the last number of The History of the Gipsy of Grosvenor Square.

  "I am so sick and tired of being poor!" she cries restlessly. "One might as well be buried alive as live in Polesheaton, and sew and dust and teach music to stupid children, and do just the same dull things over and over again every day. Oh, I do wish something would happen. I wish some of my mother's friends would die and leave me ever so much money. I would be able to make Aunt Temperance rich and happy all her life, and Deb could be my maid, and I would pension old Mr. Wells because he taught me music, and Mrs. Wells because she taught me French. Then Auntie and Deb and I would turn our backs on Polesheaton for ever, and we would live in London all our lives. I would go to the theatre every night, and wear sapphires and diamonds, and ride in the Row, and marry a marquis, an earl, or a duke. Why, one never sees anybody titled in stupid old Polesheaton!"

  Suddenly Pansy starts, and bends her head down over her novelette with a blush. She can usually get off the wall without detection, but today she is too late. She has not heard the rubber tyred wheels of a Bath chair, and she opens her dark eyes in confusion, wonder, and admiration as she sees in the chestnut-walk a footman propelling a lady with a quantity of light coloured, dense hair, with a handsome fur cloak around her shoulders.

  Mrs. Adair is a worshipper of beauty, and is quite struck by the picture before her. Pansy looks so pretty among the leaves in her old crimson dress, her auburn waves of hair rippling around her brow.

  "Do not move!" Mrs. Adair exclaims, rousing a little from her lethargy. "Let me sketch you just as you are. Robson, pass me my sketchbook, and leave me here for half an hour."

  Pansy sees and hears as in a dream. She watches the movements of
the lady's pencil, but can scarcely realize that the new tenant of Polesheaton Grange actually cares about taking her likeness. What would the Sotham girls say -- Martha Sotham, who never knows how to put on a hat properly; and Ellen, who actually brought her new jacket at that grand shop in Firlands? But no real lady has ever asked to take their portraits.

  "Quite out of the ordinary," murmurs Mrs. Adair. "The idea of meeting such a refined expression among these benighted rustics! I suppose the child is lodging at the post office. Very well, she will amuse my solitude in these wilds. What is your name, my child?"

  "Pansy," says the girl timidly, because the surname Piper has always been to her an affliction grievous to be borne.

  "Pansy. What a charming name! You look like a little flower yourself. I have made an excellent sketch."

  "Pansy was my mother's name. She was an officer's daughter," says the girl, anxious to show she is not of the race of the Sothams and the other Polesheaton families.

  Mrs. Adair is a trifle deaf, but she keeps her infirmities in the background. "You are so far away up there," she says. "I want a chat with you, Pansy. I wish you could come over this side and keep me company."

  "The little door that leads from the garden into the High Street was open just now -- I looked in at the dahlias," says Pansy, with an excited face. "Shall I come in that way, your ladyship?"

  Mrs. Adair smiles and nods, and Pansy rushes back to her room and hastily puts on her best dress: a blue alpaca with violet quilting made in Polesheaton style by the village dressmaker.

  "Why, Miss Pansy, whatever have you gone and put your best frock on for?" cries Deborah, as Pansy hurries through the shop. But the girl makes no reply. She feels that she stands on the threshold of a fairy-like, enchanting, heart-satisfying world, for has not a lady of position, with a splendid fur cloak, recognized her superiority to Polesheatonites in general, and invited her across the threshold of that wonderful garden sacred to all the traditions of the Tatlocks and their noble friends?