Robin Redbreast: A Story for Girls

'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 reassuringly. '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, muffs 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 muff, 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

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.'