Robin Redbreast Part 17

Then they ran down-stairs again to the library, where Lady Myrtle had told them she would be. They found her improving her acquaintance with Eugene, who was chattering away in a most confiding and friendly fashion, even retailing to her his self-congratulation at having been the first cause of their making friends.

'For you see if I hadn't been so fir--_wursty_,' with a great effort, 'that day, and _made_ Jacinth let me ask; no,' suddenly recollecting himself, 'she didn't let me, but you heard me over the wall, Lady Myrtle; that was it, wasn't it? So it did come of me being wursty, didn't it?'

'Yes, my dear, of course it did,' the old lady replied, with a smile.

But just then the luncheon gong sounded and they all made their way into the dining-room. All went well till about half-way through the meal, when a sudden thought struck Lady Myrtle.

'Oh Jacinth, my dear,' she said, 'I was forgetting to tell you. Your young friend at school, Honor Falmouth, _is_ the niece of my friend. I was writing to her husband the other day about a business matter--he is one of my trustees--and I asked the question. I thought it would interest you to hear it.'

'Yes,' said Jacinth, 'of course it does. She is a very nice girl indeed, but she is a good deal older than I. She plays beautifully, and next term she is going somewhere--to Germany, I think--for the best music lessons she can have. Did you play the harp, when you were a girl, Lady Myrtle?' she went on rather eagerly. She was vaguely anxious to change the conversation, for she had still a half-nervous fear of Frances's indiscretion should the subject of their school-fellows be entered upon.

'The harp!' repeated Lady Myrtle, half-absently; 'no, my love, I never was very musical. But your grandmother sang charmingly.' And Jacinth, believing she was launched on long-ago reminiscences, began to breathe freely, when suddenly the old lady reverted to the former topic.

'How much older than you is Honor?' she inquired.

'About three years. I think she is eighteen, but I'm not quite sure,'

said Jacinth.

'I was wondering,' said Lady Myrtle, 'if she would like to come to luncheon some day when you are with me. Or is there any other among your friends you care more for?'

'No,' said Jacinth, 'I think I like Honor as much as any.'

Frances was listening with the greatest interest; her mouth half-open, her knife and fork suspended in their operations. Lady Myrtle caught sight of her absorbed face and smiled.

'Have _you_ any friend you would like to ask to come here some day?' she said, kindly. 'If it were summer it would be different; we might have a strawberry feast.'

Frances grew crimson, painfully crimson.

'Oh _how_ silly she is!' thought Jacinth.

'Thank you,' stammered Frances. 'I--I don't know. I don't think so.'

'Come, you must think it over,' said Lady Myrtle, imagining the child was consumed with shyness. 'Who are your favourite friends, or have you any special favourites?'

'Yes,' replied Frances, in an agony, increased by the consciousness of Jacinth's eye, but fully remembering, too, that in replying truthfully she was violating no confidence; 'yes, I'm much the fondest of Bessie and Margaret, but they mightn't come. I don't think it would be any use inviting any of them, except a big one like Honor, thank you.'

'Ah! well I know Miss Scarlett is strict, and rightly so, I daresay,'

said the old lady. 'Who are these friends of yours--Bessie and Margaret what?'

'Bessie and Margaret Harper,' said Frances, bluntly; 'that's their name.'

A look of perplexity crossed Lady Myrtle's face. 'Harper,' she repeated.

'Bessie and Margaret Harper. No, I never heard of them. But still'----And the lines on her face seemed visibly to harden. 'Ah well, I will only ask Honor Falmouth then. You must see about it, Jacinth, and let me know when I should write to her or to Miss Scarlett.'

And then they talked of other things, Jacinth exerting herself doubly, to prevent Lady Myrtle's noticing Frances's silence and constraint. But afterwards, when they were by themselves for a moment, she took her sister to task.

'Why did you speak of the Harpers?' she said; 'and why, still worse, if you thought you shouldn't have named them, did you look so silly and ashamed as if you had done something wrong? I daresay you felt uncomfortable because, as Aunt Alison said, there have been such disagreeables in Lady Myrtle's family, and these Harpers may be some relations of hers. But--couldn't you have managed not to mention them?'

Frances looked quite as distressed as Jacinth could have expected--or more so. 'I'm sure I didn't mean to speak of them,' she said. Her meekness disarmed Jacinth.

'Well never mind,' she said rea.s.suringly. 'I daresay Lady Myrtle didn't notice; at least, if she did, she couldn't have thought you knew anything about her family affairs. _I_ don't want to hear about them; I'd rather not know what sort of relations the Harpers are, or if they're any. Don't think any more about them.'

And with this, Frances had to be or to appear content. But besides the little Jacinth knew, she had her own sorer feelings. Though Bessie and Margaret had scrupulously carried out the advice, Frances could see, they had received from home, and while as affectionate as ever to her, refrained from the very slightest allusion to family affairs or even to Robin Redbreast, yet, now that her eyes were opened as it were, Frances noticed many things that had not struck her before. As the season advanced and the weather grew colder, most of the girls appeared in new and comfortably warmer garments, for Thetford stands high and is a 'bracing' place. Well-lined ulsters, fur-trimmed jackets, m.u.f.fs and boas, were the order of the day. But not so for Bessie and Margaret.

They wore the same somewhat threadbare serges; the same not very substantial gray tweeds on Sundays, which had done duty since they came to school; the same little black cloth jackets out-of-doors, with only the addition of a knitted 'cross-over' underneath. And one day, admiring Frances's pretty m.u.f.f, and congratulating her on the immunity from chilblains it must afford, poor little Margaret confided to her impulsively that she had never possessed such a treasure in her life.

'It is one of the things I have always wished for so,' she said simply, 'though these woollen gloves that Camilla knits us are really very good.'

Then on another occasion both sisters consulted their friend on a most important matter. It was going to be mother's birthday. They _must_ send her something; they had never been away from her on her birthday before, and at home one could always make something or find out what she wanted a good while before, so as to prepare. _Could_ Frances think of anything? She must be used to thinking of things that could go by post because of her mother being in India; only--and here Bessie's eager face flushed a little, and Margaret's grave eyes grew graver--'you see it mustn't cost much; that's the worst of it.'

Frances tried not to look too sympathising.

'I know,' she said. 'I quite understand, for of course we haven't ever much money to spend. I will try to think of something.'

And for once she thoroughly enlisted Jacinth's sympathy for her friends.

Possibly, far down in Jacinth's heart, candid and loyal by nature, lay a consciousness that, notwithstanding the plausible and, to a certain extent, sound reasons for not meddling in other people's affairs, and for refraining from all 'Harper' allusions to Lady Myrtle, she was going farther than she needed in her avoidance of these girls, in her determination not to know anything about their family or their possible connection with her old lady. Her conscience was not entirely at rest.

And in a curious undefined way she was now and then grateful for Frances's ready kindness to Bessie and Margaret: it seemed a vicarious making up for the something which she felt she herself was withholding.

And this little appeal touched her sympathy; so that with a good deal of tact--more tact than Frances, blunt and blundering, could have shown--she helped to suggest and carry out a really charming little birthday present, most of the materials for which she had 'by her,'

lying useless, only asking to be made into something.

Never had Bessie Harper felt so ready to make a friend of the undemonstrative girl; never had Francie herself felt more drawn to her elder sister.

And the little present was carefully packed and sent off; and the tender mother's letter of thanks, when it came, was read to the Mildmays as but their due, and for a while it seemed as if the friendship was to extend from a trio into a quartette!

But alas! a very few days after the cheery letter from Southcliff, Frances, spending a holiday afternoon at Ivy Lodge, as often happened, especially when Jacinth was with Lady Myrtle, found Bessie Harper pale and anxious, and Margaret's eyes suspiciously red. What was the matter?

'We didn't want to tell you about our home troubles,' said Bessie. 'I'm sure it's better not, because of--you know what. But I must tell you a little. It's--it's a letter from Camilla. Father has been so much worse lately, and they didn't want to tell us. They hoped it was only rheumatism with the cold weather. But--mother managed to get him up to London to see the great doctor, and--he gave a very bad report.'

Here Bessie's voice failed.

'He's not going to die?--oh don't say that!' burst out Frances in her heedless way.

Margaret flung out her hands wildly.

'Oh Bessie,' she cried, 'is that what it really means?'

Bessie looked almost angrily at Frances.

'No, no,' she exclaimed; 'of course not. Frances, why did you say that?

Margaret, you are so fanciful. Of course it is not that. It is just that the doctor says his leg is getting stiffer and stiffer, and unless something can be done--some treatment in London first, and afterwards a course of German baths--he is afraid dad must become _quite_ a cripple--quite helpless. And that would be dreadful. It's bad enough when people are rich'--it was sad to hear the old sad 'refrain' of poverty, from lips so young--'but when they're poor! Oh no, I can't face the thoughts of it. What would his life be if he could never get out--he is so active in spite of his lameness--if he had to lie always in his poky little room? How would darling mother bear it?'

And then brave Bessie herself broke down and fled away to the house--they were in the garden--to hide herself till she had recovered some degree of calm.

CHAPTER IX.

THE INDIAN MAIL.