Robin Redbreast: A Story for Girls

Frances's eyes sparkled with pleasure.

'I would like it very much,' she said.

'What is your sister about this afternoon?' said Miss Marcia. 'Perhaps she does not care so much about games and romping as you do?'

'No, she doesn't,' replied Frances, bluntly. 'This afternoon she's gone with Aunt Alison to the girls' club.'

'Very nice,' said Miss Scarlett, approvingly. 'Jacinth is a thoughtful girl and older than her years, in some ways. Is she interested already in Miss Mildmay's good works?'

The old lady was pleased to hear of any bond of sympathy likely to draw the aunt and niece together, for much as she respected Miss Mildmay, she had had strong doubts of her fitness for the charge of the girls, and considerable misgivings as to their happiness with her. And Miss Scarlett was old-fashioned, and but for her native kindliness of heart she might almost have been prejudiced and narrow-minded. She scarcely belonged to the present generation. Her youth had been passed in a somewhat restricted groove, where the Lady Bountiful notions of benevolent work among the poor were still predominant. Her sisters, a good many years her juniors, had to a certain extent assimilated modern ideas.

Frances hesitated. She could not bear in the least to decry her dear 'Jass,' and yet she knew that her sister had so far troubled her head very little, if at all, about her aunt's girls' club or other philanthropic undertakings.

'Aunt Alison doesn't tell us much about all these things,' she said. 'To-day was the first time she asked Jacinth to go with her, but Jass was very pleased indeed, and I'm sure she'll like to be of use.'

Miss Scarlett smiled. She was quick of perception in some ways; she understood the little girl's loyal admiration of her sister, and again she patted her fair head.

'Well,' she said, encouragingly, 'sometimes, I hope, Jacinth may like to spend a holiday afternoon with us. But tell her and your aunt from me, that if ever they are at a loss what to do with you, Frances, Miss Mildmay must let me know. We can manage a good run in the garden even in wintry weather, and there are such things as blindman's-buff and hide-and-seek in the house sometimes.'

'Thank you very much,' said Frances. 'I think – I would like to come sometimes on Saturdays, for, besides going with Aunt Alison, I shouldn't wonder if – I daresay Jass may have often to go' – She stopped and hesitated, and finally blushed. 'I don't think I can explain,' she said.

'Never mind, my dear,' said Miss Marcia, coming to the rescue, with a vague idea that perhaps Jacinth had some private charities of her own in prospect which she did not wish talked about. 'Give Miss Scarlett's message to your aunt and sister, and good-bye till Monday morning.'

Frances ran off, much relieved in her mind.

'But I really must be careful how I talk,' she reflected sagely. 'I had quite forgotten that I wasn't to chatter about Lady Myrtle – except to Bessie and Margaret. Jacinth said I might really count them my friends, and that means being able to tell them anything I like. Besides, how could I have helped telling Margaret about Lady Myrtle, when she told me all the story of her being their great-aunt?'

Her conscience nevertheless was not absolutely at rest, and joined to her eagerness to tell her sister all she had heard of the Harpers' family history was now a slight fear of Jacinth's considering her indiscreet, and she was so preoccupied that, as she hurried out to the hall, where Phebe was waiting, she almost ran against Bessie, who was eagerly watching for her.

'Frances,' she said, 'I must speak to you a moment. I asked Miss Linley, and she let me run in, and she said I might walk down to the gate with you.' There was rather a long drive up to the door of Ivy Lodge. 'Listen, dear; it's this. I can't bear to ask you to keep anything a secret from your aunt or your sister, but sometimes secrets may be right, if they concern other people and are not about anything in any way wrong. And I don't see what else to do. It is this – would you mind promising me not to tell anybody about Lady Myrtle Goodacre being our relation, till I have written home to mother and told her that you and Jacinth know her, and about your grandmother having been her dear friend? I am so afraid of doing harm, or vexing father, for though he is so good, he is – very proud, you know, and – he could not bear it to – to come round to Lady Myrtle that we were talking about her, or – thinking about her money.'

Bessie's face by this time was crimson. Frances opened her mouth as if about to speak, then shut it again, and gazed at Bessie with a variety of contradictory feelings looking out of her blue eyes. There was disappointment, strong disappointment that her wonderful schemes for bringing the Harpers and their old relative together threatened thus to be nipped in the bud; there was disappointment, too, that she was not to have the pleasure and importance of relating the story 'just like one in a book' to her sister; and yet there was considerable relief, born of her recently aroused misgiving as to how Jacinth would look upon her confidences with Margaret.

Bessie meanwhile stood looking at her in undisguised anxiety.

'It doesn't matter a bit about Aunt Alison,' Frances at last blurted out. 'We're not at all bound to tell her everything; mamma knows she wouldn't understand or take the trouble to listen. And so, when we came here, mamma said we must just do the best we could. I've always told Jass everything, and we write long, long letters to mamma. We tell her – at least I do – everything that puzzles us, even things I can't understand about – about religion,' and here Frances grew red. 'Though that's one thing that's better here than at Stannesley; the Bible classes are so nice.'

'But Frances,' repeated Bessie, 'about not telling Jacinth? It is only till I write to mother and get her answer. And I'm not asking you to hide anything wrong; it's really our own family affairs.'

'I know,' said Frances. 'No, I don't think it could be wrong to promise.'

'Put it this way,' said Bessie: 'suppose you had, by some sort of accident, overheard anything about other people, you wouldn't at all think you were bound to tell Jacinth. Well, you see it was a little like that; Margaret shouldn't by rights have told you without asking mamma.'

'I see,' said Frances. 'Well then, Bessie, I promise not to tell anybody till you give me leave. Only, you won't count my writing it all to mamma? I write the most of my weekly letter to her on Sunday, so I'd like to know, because to-morrow's Sunday, you see.'

'Of course,' said Bessie with the utmost heartiness, 'of course you must write everything to your mother, just as I shall to mamma. Thank you so much, dear Francie, for understanding so well. And – and – just one other little thing – don't you think, just now, it will be better for you and Margaret not to talk about Lady Myrtle to each other? I mean if she invites you to Robin Redbreast and you go, I don't think you'd better tell Margaret. She's not very strong, and she thinks of things so, once she gets them in her head. She's different from me. I can put them right away.'

And Bessie gave herself a little shake and stood there, all the anxiety gone out of her face, bright, fearless, and handsome as usual.

Frances, however, gave a little sigh.

'Very well,' she said, 'I won't speak about it any more to Margaret if you think I'd better not. But it's rather hard not to have any one I can tell about it, when I've been so interested.'

And Frances's face grew very doleful.

Bessie Harper looked and felt sorry for her. She knew what a warm faithful little heart she had to do with, and unaware as she was of Frances's slight fear of Jacinth's displeasure, she perhaps overestimated the trial it was to the younger sister to be debarred from giving her confidences to the elder one.

'I'm very sorry,' she said, sympathisingly. 'I really am very sorry indeed. But still I'm sure it's better for Jacinth not to know about it till I hear what mother says. You see she may be invited to Lady Myrtle's any day, and if anything about the Elvedons or our family was said, it would be impossible for her not to feel uncomfortable and – and – not open, you know, unless she told what Margaret told you, and that might be just what father would dislike.'

'And suppose I go to Robin Redbreast too,' said Frances, 'what am I to do?'

'I thought you said Jacinth was the one who would go,' said Bessie.

'Oh well,' replied Frances, who had raised the difficulty partly out of half-petulant contradiction, 'I am pretty sure it will be Jass. I don't think Lady Myrtle noticed me much, and I don't want to go. I don't like her; at least I don't care about her unless she could be made nice to you. And any way she wouldn't ask me questions, even if by chance she did hear your name' —

'And Jacinth isn't the least likely to speak about us, as things are. So it's all right; and any way, Frances, you can write a very long letter to your mother to-morrow.'

'Yes,' the little girl agreed. 'That's better than nothing; only, just think of the weeks and weeks before I can get an answer! Whatever other troubles you have, Bessie, you are lucky to have your father and mother in England, and to know them. I don't know mamma for myself a bit; only by her letters, and because I just feel she must be very good and kind. When I was very little it seemed something like – no, perhaps you wouldn't understand' —

'I think I would,' said Bessie, who was eager to make up by every means in her power for any distress she was causing to her friend. 'Tell me.'

'I was only thinking what queer feelings children have,' said Frances. 'When I was little, before I had ever seen mamma – of course I can remember her since the time I did see her, five years ago, and since then she has seemed real – but before that, it was only a kind of faith. Writing letters to her was a very little – don't think it's naughty of me to say it – a very little like saying our prayers. They went out, away to somewhere, to some one I'd never seen; just like, you know, when we pray.'

'Yes,' said Bessie gently, 'but the answers came.'

'I know,' replied Frances simply. 'And sometimes I think it helped to make me feel that there is something real in saying our prayers. But I must go.'

'And so must I,' said Bessie. 'And thank you, dear Francie.'

She kissed the little face affectionately, and then hastened back to her companions.

'I do love Frances,' she thought. 'Somehow, I don't feel as if I could ever love Jacinth quite as much. I do hope all this won't bother the poor little thing. I should make Margaret unhappy if I blamed her for having told Frances, and I scarcely see how she could have helped it. It isn't as if we were in disgrace,' and Bessie threw back her head proudly. 'We have no secrets: father's whole life and character are grand; and rather than have that horrid old Lady Myrtle – there, now, I'm calling her just what I told Frances she mustn't – rather than have her thinking we want her money, I'd – I don't know what I wouldn't do. If only' – And here poor Bessie's heroics broke down a little. There came before her a vision of 'father' with his crutch – for he had been wounded in the hip and was very lame – with the lines of suffering on his face, showing through the cheery smile which it was seldom without; and of 'mother' in her well-worn black poplin, which she used to declare was 'never going to look shabby,' planning and contriving how to send the two girls, neatly and sufficiently provided for, to school, when the wonderful chance of a year at Miss Scarlett's had so unexpectedly come in their way.

Bessie's eyes filled with tears.

'I'd do anything for them,' she thought. 'I'd go to be Lady Myrtle's companion or lady's-maid or anything, if it would do any good. It's all very well to be "proud," but I'm afraid my pride would melt very quickly if I could see any way to help them. But I'm glad I stopped Frances talking about it; it really might have done harm. I must write a long letter to mother. I wonder if I can begin it to-night?'

Frances, escorted by Phebe, made her way home in greater silence for some minutes than was usual with her. She was revolving many things in her fluffy little head.

'Had they come in when you started to fetch me?' she inquired at last of the maid.

'Not yet, Miss Frances. Miss Mildmay gave me orders to go for you at half-past six, before she went out. But I don't think they'll be long. Late tea is ordered for half-past seven, and Miss Mildmay is never behind time on Saturday evenings.'

'I don't mind whether they're in or not – not much,' said Frances. 'I don't want any more tea. I suppose Eugene has had his?'

'Yes, Miss Frances, his tea and an egg. He was very pleased. Master Eugene does enjoy a nice boiled fresh egg. I think you'll have to go down to late tea, though, Miss Frances; perhaps Miss Mildmay wouldn't be pleased if you didn't; and perhaps' —

'Nonsense, Phebe,' said her young mistress; 'Aunt Alison doesn't care. You speak as if she was like a mamma, wanting to have us beside her always. She's had Miss Jacinth all the afternoon, and she likes her better than me. I'm sure she wouldn't care if she never saw me again. Well, no; perhaps I shouldn't say that, for she's quite kind. She was very kind about letting me go this afternoon, and sending you to take me and to fetch me, Phebe.'

'Yes, Miss Frances,' began Phebe, again with some hesitation, 'it was just that I was thinking about. If you go down to tea just as usual, nice and neat, it'll make it more likely that she will let you go again. It will show that a little change now and then will do you no harm, nor get you out of regular ways, so to say, Miss Frances.'

'Very well,' the child agreed; 'I don't care much one way or another. Oh Phebe,' she went on, brightening up again – it would have been difficult to depress Francie for long – 'we had such fun this afternoon;' and she went into some particulars of the games, which Phebe listened to with great interest. 'I wish Aunt Alison would sometimes let us have friends to play with us. We could have beautiful "I spy" in the garden.'

'Yes, Miss Frances, so you could,' agreed Phebe.

'You see at Stannesley there were really no children, no girls any way near our age except the Vicar's daughter, and though she came to have tea with us sometimes it wasn't much pleasure – not fun, at least. She's a little older than Miss Jacinth, and oh, Phebe, she's so awfully deaf. It's almost like not hearing at all.'

'Poor young lady!' said Phebe, sympathisingly.

'Yes, isn't it sad? And so, you see, the one thing we were glad of about coming here – I was, any way – was about going to school; just what some girls wouldn't have liked. I've always wanted so to have some companions, only it isn't half as much good having them if you only see them at lessons. I don't think Miss Jacinth minds. She was pleased to go to school because of learning better and finding out how much other girls know compared with us, but I don't think she minds the way I do.'

She had almost forgotten whom she was speaking to, or indeed that she was speaking aloud, and half started when Phebe replied again to this long speech.

'It's just because of that, Miss Frances,' said the girl, 'that I was thinking how nice it will be if you're invited sometimes to play with the young ladies of a holiday afternoon like to-day. And if I were you, I'd take care to show Miss Mildmay that it doesn't unsettle you, and I'd just put out of my mind about having any young ladies to come to you. It'd not suit your aunt's ways.'

'No,' said Frances, 'I suppose not. It's only really the Harpers I care about,' she added to herself. 'And now,' she went on thinking, 'with this muddle about the old lady at Robin Redbreast – if their mother doesn't want her to know about them, perhaps it's best for Jacinth not to see them much. And I'll have to forget what Margaret told me, after I've written to mamma. I want to remember it exactly to tell her.'

She sighed a little. Almost for the first time Frances began to realise that, even when one is possessed of the purest motives and the best intentions, life may be a complicated business. Right and wrong are not always written up before us on conspicuous finger-posts, as we fancy in childhood will be the case. There are shades and modifications, wisdom and unwisdom; apparently, though, thank God, only 'apparently,' conflicting duties, whose rival claims it is not always easy to measure. And it is not till some stages later in our journey that we come to see how our own prejudices or shortsightedness or self-will are really at the root of the perplexity. For God demands no impossibilities. As has been quaintly said, 'He neither expects us to be in two places at once, nor to put twenty-five hours' work into twenty-four.'

To do what is the least agreeable to us, though far from an invariable rule, is often a safe one. Frances would have liked to run up-stairs to the nursery, and to sit down there and then to the long letter to 'mamma,' to the outpouring of confidence to the almost unknown friend she had learned to trust. But common-sense and a certain docility, which was strongly developed in her, in spite of her superficial self-assertion and blunt, even abrupt outspokenness, made her yield to Phebe's advice.

And it was a neat, composed-looking little maiden who met her aunt and sister on their return half an hour or so later, somewhat tired and fagged by their rather tedious afternoon's work.

'I am glad you are back, my dear,' said her aunt. 'I wished afterwards I had made a point of your not keeping Phebe waiting, as I had forgotten that Eugene would be alone, and I am always afraid of any accident with the fire, or anything of that kind.'

'I did keep her waiting a little,' said Frances, honestly. 'But I've been back a good while. I've heard Eugene his Sunday lessons: he knows them quite well. And I think tea is quite ready, Aunt Alison.'

'That's right,' Miss Mildmay replied. 'You may ring for it to be brought in, while Jacinth and I take off our things. – Frances seems none the worse for her visit,' she added to her elder niece as they made their way up-stairs. 'I shall not object to her going to Ivy Lodge sometimes in this way, if it does not make her rough or hoydenish.'

'I don't think there is much fear of her learning anything of that kind from the boarders,' said Jacinth, gratified by her aunt's confidential tone. 'I shouldn't be so sure of the day-scholars, but you know, Aunt Alison, the Miss Scarletts keep them very distinct. It is a – well,' with a little smile, 'a great compliment for Francie to be asked this way.'

'The Miss Scarletts have plenty of discrimination,' her aunt replied. 'They know that my nieces – your father's daughters – going to any school, especially a day-school, is a great compliment to that school.'

It was not often that Miss Mildmay indulged in any expression of her underlying family pride. It suited Jacinth's ideas 'down to the ground.'

'Yes, of course,' she agreed quietly. 'Still the school is an exceptional one. I think Frances is learning to understand some things better,' she went on. 'But of course she is very young for her age. At first she was far too ready to rush into bosom friendships and enthusiastic admirations and all that sort of thing. And she perfectly adores games,' with a slight intonation of contempt.

'You don't?' said Miss Mildmay, smiling. 'There is nothing to be ashamed of in liking games, if not allowed to go too far.'

'I think it must be born in some people,' said Jacinth. 'It isn't laziness that makes me not care for them. For I love riding and long walks and dancing. Only, somehow, I feel so much older.'

'I can sympathise with you,' said her aunt. 'I have never been able to care for any game that ever was invented. So I have not been victimising you this afternoon, you are sure?'

'Oh indeed, no,' replied Jacinth heartily.

On the whole the domestic atmosphere in Market Square Place seemed more genial.

CHAPTER VII.

AN INVITATION

Jacinth was quick of observation. They had not been many minutes seated at table before it struck her that Frances was unusually silent – or rather, absent and preoccupied, for the mere fact of her not speaking much in her aunt's presence was not remarkable.

She glanced at Frances once or twice inquiringly, then she tried to draw her into the conversation, but only succeeded in extracting monosyllables in reply. Still her sister did not look depressed, certainly not cross; it was much more as if her thoughts were elsewhere.

'What are you dreaming about, Frances?' said Jacinth at last with a touch of sharpness. 'Are you very tired?'

'Did you not enjoy yourself this afternoon?' asked Miss Mildmay, following suit.

Frances started, and pulled herself together.

'Oh yes,' she said, 'very much. I never enjoyed myself more. I was only – oh, I was only thinking of things.'

'What sort of things?' asked her aunt good-humouredly. 'Had you much grave and learned discussion at Ivy Lodge?'

Frances reddened a little.

'We did talk quietly part of the time,' she said. 'We weren't playing games all the afternoon. I was a good while walking up and down with Margaret, and afterwards with Bessie.'

Miss Mildmay glanced inquiringly at her elder niece.

'Yes,' said Jacinth, replying to the unspoken question. 'Those are the girls Frances is so fond of – the Harpers.'

'Oh yes, I remember,' said Miss Mildmay. 'Their mother is an old friend of the Scarletts, and the good souls were delighted to take the girls at' – She stopped suddenly, aware that she had been on the point of betraying a confidence, realising, too, that the subject of it was scarcely suited for her young auditors, for Frances especially. But in her slight confusion she stumbled on the very thing she was anxious to avoid, so that it required little 'putting of two and two together' for Jacinth to complete to herself, with an inward smile, her aunt's broken-off sentence. 'They are not – the Harpers, I mean – they are not at all well off, and – a large family, I fancy,' Miss Mildmay went on.

'No,' said Frances in her clear young voice, rather to her hearers' surprise, 'no, they are not at all rich.'

Then she started, grew crimson, and looked round in affright: had she said something she should not have said? A strange, silly, nervous feeling came over her; as if she must, in another moment, burst into tears.

'Frances,' said Jacinth, 'what are you looking so terrified about? There's no harm in what you said. It's no secret; Aunt Alison said it herself first.'

Her tone was not unkindly, though slightly sharp. But a look of relief overspread her sister's face.

'No, of course not. I'm very silly,' she murmured.

'I think you must be a little over-tired,' said Miss Mildmay vaguely. She had not specially noticed Frances's expression. 'I wonder,' she went on, 'I wonder if those Harpers are any relation to the Elvedons? I can't quite remember what Miss Scarlett said about them. It was their mother she was interested in, though – not their father. If they were Elvedon Harpers, Lady Myrtle would know about them; at least' —

'Harper isn't at all an uncommon name,' interrupted Jacinth.

But Miss Mildmay did not resent the little discourtesy – her mind was pursuing its own train of thought. 'I don't know that it would follow that she could know anything of them,' she said. 'Some of the last generation of Harpers were sadly unsatisfactory, and I believe the old man, Lady Myrtle's father, disinherited one or more of his sons. So if you ever go to Robin Redbreast, girls, I think it would be just as well not to mention your school-fellows of the name.'

Jacinth shot a rather triumphant glance at her sister.

'It is generally better, and more well-bred, not to begin about "Are you related to the so-and-so's?" or "I have friends of your name," and remarks like that; isn't it, Aunt Alison?' she said. 'I was telling Frances so, only yesterday.'

Frances reddened again.