Robin Redbreast: A Story for Girls

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

Frances went home that evening feeling very unhappy and terribly full of sympathy, while painfully conscious the while that as yet she must not unburden herself to any one, not even to Jacinth, of her whole thoughts and feelings in connection with the Harpers. And in any case she could not have done so, for Jacinth was away at Robin Redbreast till Monday.

They met at school on Monday morning, but it was not till they were on their way home at dinner-time that the sisters had any opportunity of speaking to each other. Jacinth was looking almost brilliantly well, and, for her, Frances saw in a moment, in extremely good spirits. No wonder – every time she went to Lady Myrtle, the old lady showed her increasing signs of affection and goodwill: she almost hinted that she wished the girl to think of herself as in a sense adopted by her.

'Francie,' said the elder sister, when they at last found themselves alone, 'I have something so lovely to show you,' and she drew out a little velvet-covered case from her pocket. 'See – this is what dear Lady Myrtle has given me; isn't it splendid?'

The 'it' was a small and evidently valuable watch. The back was enamelled and set with diamonds, in the form of a 'J.' It was somewhat old-fashioned, enough to enhance its beauty and uncommonness, and Frances gazed at it in breathless admiration.

'It was Lady Myrtle's own,' explained Jacinth. 'She told me that she and our grandmother once had a fancy – rather a silly one, I think, though I didn't say so – for having each other's initial on their things – things like this, I mean. So when somebody gave them each a watch, two the same, they exchanged them. Lady Myrtle doesn't know what became of our grandmother's, but she thinks it was lost or stolen, otherwise mother would have had it. And she has not worn this for ever so long. She says she always hoped that some day she'd find somebody belonging to grandmother. Oh Francie, isn't it a good thing I was called "Jacinth?"'

Frances murmured something in reply; her eyes were fixed on the watch.

'The works are first-rate —better than they make them now,' Jacinth continued; 'and Lady Myrtle has had it thoroughly overhauled by her own watchmaker in London, so she's sure it'll go perfectly, with any one careful; and I am careful, am I not, Francie? Lady Myrtle says she could see I was, almost the first time she spoke to me.'

'Yes,' said Frances, absently, 'I am sure you are, and I am sure Lady Myrtle thinks you almost perfect.'

But still she gazed at the watch, as if it half-mesmerised her.

'I've felt in such a hurry to tell you about it – to show it to you,' said Jacinth. 'It seemed to be burning a hole in my pocket, as they say. I did so wish I could have shown it to some of the girls, but I thought it was better not.'

This last remark seemed to arouse Frances.

'Yes,' she agreed heartily, 'I think it was much better not.' Then, after a moment or two's silence, 'I wonder how much it is worth?' she went on; 'ten or twenty pounds, I daresay?'

'Ten or twenty!' repeated Jacinth; 'oh, much more than that. Forty or fifty at least, I should say.'

Frances gasped.

'What a lot of things one could do with as much money as that!' she said. 'I daresay it would be enough to – to' —

'To what?' said Jacinth, a little impatience in her tone.

'Oh – only something I was thinking of – some one who's ill and can't do what the doctor says,' replied Frances, confusedly.

Jacinth felt irritated.

'I don't understand you, Frances,' she said. 'Do you want to take away my pleasure in my watch? I've never had one before, you know, and lots of girls have watches, quite young. Of course I know the value of it would do lots of things – make some poor family quite rich for a year. But when you get a new frock of some good stuff and nicely made, I don't say to you that you might have had it of common print, run up anyhow, and spent the rest on poor people. You don't see things fairly, Frances.'

Frances recognised the sense of Jacinth's argument, but she could not explain herself.

'I didn't mean that exactly,' she said. 'I know there have to be degrees of things – rich and poor, and I suppose it's not wrong to be rich, if – if one doesn't get selfish. That isn't what I meant. I'm very pleased you've got the watch, Jass, and I wish I hadn't said that.'

'I wish you hadn't too,' said her sister. 'It has taken away a good deal of my pleasure; and somehow, Frances, very often now, I don't understand you. I know you are never the least jealous, you haven't it in you, but yet you don't seem to like to see me happy. I could almost think you are what Aunt Alison would call "morbid."'

'I don't think I know what that means,' said Frances, sadly, though she had a sort of idea what Jacinth wished to express.

'Sometimes,' continued Jacinth, 'I have a feeling that other girls have come between you and me. If it could be – if I really thought it was the Harpers, though they do seem nice, I would almost hate them. One way and another, they do seem to have been the cause of a lot of worry.'

'Oh Jass, it isn't their fault – truly it isn't,' pleaded Frances, almost in tears. 'I haven't been very happy lately, but indeed it isn't that I'm changed to you. Perhaps after a while you'll understand me better. If only mamma was at home' —

'It's no good wishing for that,' replied Jacinth. 'And you are so queer, I really don't know if you'd be pleased if things did happen to make mamma come home. I was going to tell you some things,' she added mysteriously, 'but I think I'd better not.'

And, to her surprise, her hints, instead of whetting her sister's curiosity, seemed rather to alarm her.

'No,' she agreed, 'if it's anything about Lady – or, or plans, I'd rather not know. I hate any sort of secret.'

She said the last few words almost roughly, and Jacinth, in spite of her irritation, felt sorry for her. It was evident that poor little Frances had something on her mind. But the elder sister did not invite her confidence.

'I believe it has to do with these girls,' she thought, 'and if it has, I don't want to know it. So Frances and I are quits; she doesn't want my secrets and I don't want hers. Honor Falmouth says it is uncertain if the Harpers will stay after Christmas. I'm sure I hope they won't. Frances would forget all about them once they were away. She is such a baby.'

But her own words had suggested some comfort to Frances. 'If only mamma were here!' she had said. And suddenly she remembered that though mamma herself could not be hoped for, a letter – a letter in answer to her own long one enclosing Camilla Harper's – would soon be due.

'It is five – no, six weeks since I sent it,' she thought joyfully. 'I must hear soon. And then I do hope mamma will say it is best to tell Jass all about it, whether Jass is vexed with me or not; and even if there's no chance of making Lady Myrtle kind to them, I'd far rather Jass knew all I know.'

She sighed, but there was relief in her sigh. And when in another moment she began talking cheerfully about Jacinth's visit, and all she had done at Robin Redbreast, her sister almost decided that she herself had been fanciful and exaggerated about Frances – making mountains out of molehills. Jacinth was very anxious to take this view of things; it was much more comfortable to think that the Harpers had had nothing to do with Frances's fits of depression.

'And after all,' thought Jacinth, 'why should we bother about them? As likely as not they're no relation to Lady Myrtle, or so distant that it doesn't count. And it's really not our business.'

It is seldom the case that a looked-for letter – especially from a great distance – arrives when hoped for. And Frances had hoped for her mother's reply by the very first date possible.

She was not disappointed. They came – a good fat letter for her, a thinner one for Jacinth. They lay on the hall table one day when the girls came home from school; having arrived by the mid-day post, in which Thetford now rejoiced.

Frances seized her letter, her cheeks flushing with excitement.

'What a thick letter you've got this time!' said Jacinth. But Frances scarcely heard her.

'Oh, I do so hope I shall have time to read it before dinner!' she said.

'You've half – no, twenty-five minutes,' said Jacinth. 'Run and get ready first; it won't take you any time, and then you can read your letter in peace. That's what I'm going to do.'

Frances took her sister's advice, and she managed to make her appearance in the dining-room punctually, the precious letter in her pocket, its contents already digested. She was rosier than usual, and Jacinth, who knew her ways so well, could see that she was struggling to keep down her excitement. Jacinth herself was not sorry when dinner was over and she was free to talk to Frances, after answering a question or two from her aunt about their Indian news.

'Frances,' said her sister, when they found themselves in their own little sitting-room, 'mamma tells me that she has written a good deal more to you this time than to me, as there was something particular you asked her about. And she says you will tell it me all, or show me her letter.'

Frances drew out her packet.

'There's more than one letter there, surely,' said Jacinth, with some curiosity.

'Yes,' said Frances, 'there's one I sent on to mamma to read, and she's sent it back, so that you can see it now. I daresay you'll be angry with me for not having told you about it before, but I can't help it if you are. Mamma says I did the best I could; but I am so glad for you to know all about it now,' and she gave a great sigh.

Jacinth, more and more curious, took the letters which Frances gave her, and began to read them eagerly. Rather unfortunately, the first she began was Camilla Harper's, and she went to the end of it in spite of Frances's 'Oh, do read mamma's first, Jass.'

Jacinth's brows contracted, and the lines of her delicate face hardened, but she said nothing – nothing really audible, that is to say, though a murmur escaped her of, 'I knew it had something to do with them; it is too bad.'

When she had finished, she looked up at her sister.

'There is a good deal more for you to explain,' she said, coldly. 'Mamma says you will do so – not that I want to hear it. And as you have got so thoroughly in the way of having secrets from me, and now that you have friends you care for more than me, I really don't see why I need to be mixed up in this affair at all.'

'Oh Jass, dear Jass, don't speak like that,' exclaimed Frances, the ever-ready tears starting to her eyes. 'I couldn't help it. Read again what mamma says.'

'I know what she says,' Jacinth replied. 'I don't need to read it again. I am waiting for you to tell me the whole.'

It was difficult, but Frances was eager to re-establish confidence with her sister. She told the whole – even how the old Christmas card in her pocket had brought up the subject of Robin Redbreast, and how Bessie had asked her to tell no one but her mother, if she could help it; then how Camilla's letter had repeated this, ending up by what had recently come to her knowledge of the increased troubles of the Harper family.

'Oh Jass,' she concluded, 'if we could help them somehow. I am so glad mamma has met that aunt of theirs —isn't it lucky? Perhaps she'll be able now to manage something without vexing Captain and Mrs Harper.'

Jacinth lifted her head and looked at Frances. She was paler than usual.

'I really do think you must be a sort of an idiot,' she said. 'Otherwise, I should be forced to believe you had no real family affection at all. Surely the Harpers might teach you to have that, however much mischief they have made in other ways.'

Frances stared at her, dumb with perplexity.

'What do you mean, Jacinth?' she said at last.

Jacinth for once lost her self-control.

'Do you not care for your own father and mother to get anything good?' she said. 'Papa's life has been hard enough – so has ours – separated almost ever since we can remember from our parents. And it is all a question of money, to put it plainly, though it is horrid of you to force me to say it. Do you think papa, who is far from a young man now, stays out in that climate for pleasure – wearing himself out to be sure of his pension? And if Lady Myrtle chooses to treat us as her relations – mamma, the daughter of her dearest friend – instead of the son of that bad, wretched brother of hers – why shouldn't she? And you would ruin everything by silly interference in behalf of people we have nothing to do with: very likely you'd do no good to them, and only offend her for ever with us. Do you understand now what I mean?'

Frances was trembling, but she would not cry.

'Mamma does not see it that way,' she said. 'She is pleased and delighted at Lady Myrtle being so kind, but she does care about the Harpers too. Read what she says,' and Frances hurriedly unfolded the letter again till she found the passage she wanted.

This was what Mrs Mildmay said, after expressing her sympathy with all Frances had told her, and advising her now to tell the whole to Jacinth. 'I remember vaguely about the Harper family in the old days,' she wrote. 'I know that Lady Myrtle's two brothers caused her much trouble, especially the younger, really embittering her life. But for many years I have heard nothing of her or any of the family till just now, for a curious coincidence has happened. A few days before I got your long letter, enclosing Miss Harper's, and dear Jacinth's too, telling of her invitation to Robin Redbreast, I had met a Mrs Lyle, whose husband has got an appointment here. And Mrs Lyle is Captain Harper's sister. I like her very much, and we have already made great friends. She is very frank, and devoted to her brother and his family; and when she heard of my children being at Thetford, in talking, one thing led to another, so that I really knew all you tell me – and perhaps more. It will be rather difficult for you and Jacinth – for Jassie especially – to avoid all appearance of interference, as that would do harm on both sides. But still you may find opportunities of speaking warmly and admiringly of the Harper girls, whenever your school happens to be mentioned. That can do no harm, and may even help to pave the way for bringing about a better state of things some day. For I do feel most interested in the Harpers, and every time we meet, Mrs Lyle and I talk about them, and all the troubles they have really so nobly borne.'

Then Mrs Mildmay went on to speak of her pleasure in her children's having won Lady Myrtle's kindness, adding that she would look forward eagerly to the next letters, telling of Jacinth's visit.

'Marmy says,' she wrote, 'that it must have been a presentiment which made you all take such a fancy to that quaint old house, even though you only saw it from the outside.'

All this Frances read again boldly to her sister. Jacinth did not interrupt her, but listened in silence.

'Well,' she said, when Frances stopped, 'I told you I had read all mamma said.'

'Then why are you so angry with me?' demanded Frances bluntly. 'If I am a sort of an idiot, mamma is too.'

Jacinth did not reply.

'Mamma says you are not to attempt to interfere,' she said at last.

'I am not going to. I wouldn't do so for the Harpers' sake, much more than for Lady Myrtle's. The Harpers have trusted me, and I won't do anything they wouldn't like.'

'Well,' said Jacinth bitterly, 'you'd better write it all to mamma – all the horrid, calculating, selfish things I've said. You've got quite separated from me now, so that it really doesn't matter what you say of me.'

This was too much. Frances at last dissolved into tears and flung herself upon her sister, entreating her 'not to say such things,' to believe that nobody in the world – not Bessie or Margaret or anybody– could ever make up to her for her own dear Jass.

'You're not selfish,' she said. 'You're far more unselfish, really, than I am. For I never think of things. I see I've never thought enough of poor papa and mamma, and how hard it's been for them in many ways, though I did say to Bessie the other day that, whatever troubles they'd had, they'd not been parted from each other the way we've been.'

'I'm glad you said that,' Jacinth condescended to say, 'just to let them see that they're not the only people in the world who have to bear things.'

'Oh, they don't think that,' said Frances. 'And Jass,' she went on, encouraged by her sister's softer tone, and encircling her neck fondly with her two arms as she sat, half on Jacinth's knee, half on the edge of her chair, 'I don't quite see why being sorry for the poor Harpers, and – and – wishing we could make Lady Myrtle feel so too, need make her leave off being kind to us too. That's how mamma sees it. I am not only thinking of the Harpers, Jass; indeed, I'm not. I'm looking forward more than I can tell you to what you said – that when papa and mamma come home, Lady Myrtle is going to invite us all to stay with her. Oh, it would be lovely!' and the little girl clasped her hands together. 'All the same,' she went on, 'I don't think I want ever to go to Robin Redbreast till that time comes. I can't feel natural there, and I'm afraid of vexing you or doing harm somehow.'

'It is not in our hands – not in mine, any way,' said Jacinth quietly. 'All you have told me makes no difference to me. I am not going to meddle, and I shall not mention the Harpers at all, if I can help it.'

'Not even in the way mamma says we might?' said Frances.

'No – not at all, if I can help it. I do not want to spoil the happiness of being with Lady Myrtle by bringing up disagreeable subjects. I shall tell mamma so when I write.'

Frances was silent. After all, she reflected, perhaps it did not much matter. Jacinth did not know Bessie and Margaret as she did, and now that her sister understood the whole – the near relationship and the whole story, perhaps it would be very difficult for her to come upon the subject naturally.

'Honor Falmouth says,' remarked Jacinth in a moment or two, 'that she has heard that perhaps the girls are not coming back to school after the Christmas holidays.'

'Oh,' exclaimed Frances, looking greatly troubled, 'oh, Jass, I do hope it's not true.'

'I should not be very sorry,' said Jacinth, 'except,' she added with some effort, 'except for your sake. And of course I have never said that they were not very nice girls. I know they are, only – it has been so tiresome and unlucky. I just wish we had never known them.'

'I wish sometimes we had never known Lady Myrtle,' said Frances. 'You and I have never been – like this – with each other before, Jass.'

'Well, we needn't quarrel about it,' said her sister. 'Let's try to keep off the subject of the Harper family. For I can do them no good.'

'Very well,' said Frances, though rather sadly. 'I wonder,' she went on thinking to herself – 'I wonder why Bessie and Margaret are perhaps to leave school; they are getting on so well.'

She was too unpractical to guess at the truth – which Jacinth had thought it useless to mention as a part of Miss Falmouth's information – that their parents could no longer afford to pay for them.

'For to be gentlepeople, as they undoubtedly are in every sense of the word,' the girl had said, 'they are really awfully poor. I have heard so from some people who know them at that place where they live. It is quite a little seaside place, where people who want to be quiet go for bathing in the summer. But the Harpers live there all the year round. It must be fearfully dull.'

'Yes,' Jacinth agreed, 'it can't be lively. Still, being poor isn't the only trouble in the world.'

'No,' Miss Falmouth replied, 'but I fear they have others too. Captain Harper is so delicate.'

Jacinth said no more. Honor Falmouth was a kind-hearted but not particularly thoughtful girl, and she forgot all about the Harpers in five minutes. Her visit to Robin Redbreast had never come to pass, and Jacinth did not very specially regret it. She liked best to be alone with Lady Myrtle. So the relationship of the young Harpers to the old lady had never come to Honor's knowledge, as it might perhaps have done if her attention had been drawn to Lady Myrtle by visiting at her house. And at Christmas Honor was leaving school.

CHAPTER X.

THE HARPERS' HOME

Southcliff was a very dull little place, especially so in winter, of course. In fine weather there is always a charm about the seaside, even on the barest and least picturesque coast. There are the endless varieties of sky panorama – the wonderful sunsets, if you are lucky enough to face seawards to the west; the constantly changing effects of light and colour reflected in the water itself. And on a wild or rugged coast, winter and stormy weather bring of course their own grand though terrible displays.