Silverbeach Manor

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 Adair says about Pansy's clothes, The style is a little out of date, but it is good enough for the country.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

Introduction

There were many prolific Christian writers in the last part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. The majority of these books were fairly heavy-handed moral tales and warnings to young people, rather than romances. Two writers spring to mind who wrote romantic fiction for adults -- Mrs. O. F. Walton and Margaret S. Haycraft, whose works are still popular today. Our White Tree Publishing editions from these authors have been sensitively abridged and edited to make them much more acceptable to today's general readers, rather than publishing them unedited for students of Victorian prose. The characters and storyline are always left intact.

Eliza Kerr is less well known than Mrs. Walton and Margaret Haycraft, but she wrote similar books, but with perhaps less emphasis on romance, but in a similar style to the books of Walton and Haycraft, and we welcome Eliza Kerr to our catalogue. We will be publishing more books from Margaret S. Haycraft and Eliza Kerr in 2018. The titles and release dates will be announced on our website.

Victorian and early twentieth century books by Christian and secular writers can be over-sentimental, referring throughout, for example, to a mother as the dear, sweet mother, and a child as the darling little child. In our abridged editions overindulgent descriptions of people have been shortened to make a more robust story, but the characters and storylines are always 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 these when appropriate.

£2,000 in the late 1800s may not sound much, but in income value it is worth about £240,000 pounds today (about US $300,000). I mention this in case the sums of money in this book sound insignificant!

Chris Wright

Editor

Publisher's Note

Although not in the original, Bible quotes have been added in square brackets [thus] to enable the reader to confirm the words, or check them in another version.

There are 14 chapters in this book. In the second half are advertisements for our other similar books, so this book may end earlier than expected! The last chapter is marked as such. We aim to make our eBooks free or for a nominal cost, and cannot invest in other forms of advertising. However, word of mouth by satisfied readers will also help get our books more widely known. When the book finishes, please take a look at the other books we publish: Christian non-fiction, Christian fiction, and books for younger readers.

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