Silverbeach Manor
Authors: Margaret S. Haycraft
Tags: #romance, #romance historical, #orphan girl, #romance 1800s, #romance 1890s, #christian fiction christian romance heartwarming
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Adair says about Pansy's clothes, "The style is a little out of
date, but it is good enough for the country.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.
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
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.
More Books from White
Tree Publishing
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
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.