Robin Redbreast: A Story for Girls

A LETTER AND A DISCUSSION

'Were you very late last night, Aunt Alison? Are you tired?'

The questions came from Frances, who had noticed the unusual silence at the breakfast-table – not that they were ever very loquacious, for Eugene had his meals up-stairs and he was the chatterbox of the party – but without any of her sister's fears or misgivings. So that she looked up at her aunt in happy freedom from any self-conscious embarrassment.

'I was not later than I am usually on Fridays,' said Miss Mildmay. 'No, thank you, I am not tired. Will you have some more tea, Jacinth?'

'Yes, please,' said the elder girl. She was growing more and more nervous, and yet her anxiety to know if Lady Myrtle really had written already made her remain near her aunt as long as possible.

Miss Mildmay had apparently finished her own breakfast, for after handing Jacinth her cup, she took up a little pile of letters which lay beside her, and drew out one, which she unfolded and glanced at with a peculiar expression on her face.

'Have you – have you nothing to tell me – no message to give me?' she said at last, still fingering the letter.

She spoke to both girls, but it seemed to Jacinth as if her words were more specially addressed to her, and she started, while a flush rose to her face. And suddenly she remembered – or realised rather – that Lady Myrtle had given them a message for their aunt; though, oddly enough, in spite of her thoughts having been so much absorbed with the adventure of the day before, it had never once occurred to her during that silent breakfast that she should have spoken of it to her aunt – should, in fact, have related all that had passed. There had been no reason for her not doing so – the old lady had specially desired it – it was only that her strong impression that Miss Mildmay had something to say to them had made her wait.

'Of course,' she exclaimed nervously. 'I really don't know what we've been thinking of not to tell you. For we have a message for you. – Frances, why didn't you remind me?'

Frances stared. It was seldom her way to take the initiative, she was so accustomed to follow Jacinth's lead; and just now she had been quite contentedly waiting to speak of their visit to Robin Redbreast till her sister saw fit to do so.

'I – I didn't know. I thought' – began Frances confusedly.

Miss Mildmay turned upon her sharply.

'Have you been planning together not to speak of this – this curious affair to me?' she said. 'I don't pretend not to know all about it. I do,' and she touched the letter, 'by this, but I must say I think I should not have heard of it first from a stranger. There is one thing I cannot and will not stand, I warn you, girls, and that is any approach to want of candour.'

'Aunt Alison,' exclaimed Jacinth in hot indignation, 'how can you? Did you not hear me ask Frances why she had not reminded me to tell you?'

'No, I cannot understand that,' said her aunt, still coldly. 'It is quite impossible that you had forgotten about it, when it only happened' – She glanced at the letter and hesitated. 'When was it, it happened?'

'Only yesterday,' said Jacinth quietly. 'No, of course, I hadn't forgotten. But I had forgotten that I had a message for you that I should have given immediately I saw you. That I had forgotten, and if you don't believe me, I can't help it.'

Her voice choked, and the tears rushed to her eyes, though with a strong effort she kept them from falling.

Frances glanced at her, her face working with sympathy.

Miss Mildmay seemed perplexed.

'Only yesterday!' she said. 'I don't see how I have got this letter so quickly. I thought it was at least the day before.'

'No,' said Frances, 'it was only yesterday. We went a long walk in the afternoon, and of course we didn't see you till this morning. We couldn't have told you till just now, and I thought – I think – I thought Jass was waiting to speak to you alone after breakfast.'

'It wasn't that,' said Jacinth. 'If you want to know exactly why I didn't begin about it at breakfast, Aunt Alison, it was because I had a sort of idea or fancy that you had heard already from Lady Myrtle. I thought you looked just a little annoyed, and I kept expecting you to say something about it, and then, of course, I would have told you everything there was to tell.'

Miss Alison Mildmay was severe, but she was not distrustful or suspicious, and the candour of the two girls was unmistakable.

'I am sorry,' she said, 'to have judged you unfairly. Tell me the whole story now, and then I will read you what this eccentric old lady says.'

She smiled a little.

'That was just what she said you'd call her,' broke in Frances. 'But she said her letter would make you understand.'

'Oh yes, of course it does, to a certain extent,' replied her aunt. Then her eyes fell on the envelope – 'Miss Alison Mildmay.'

'Considering I have lived twenty years at Thetford,' she said, rather bitterly, 'I think it, to say the least, unnecessary to address me like this, though of course I don't deny that it is, strictly speaking, correct.'

Jacinth glanced at it.

'I am sure' – she began. 'You don't think I had anything to do with it?'

'Oh no, I don't suppose you ever thought of it. But Lady Myrtle Goodacre has never seen fit to call upon me, so it is all of a piece. I really must not waste any more time, however; I have a dozen things waiting for me to do. You say it was yesterday afternoon?'

'Yes,' said Jacinth. 'We went a long walk – to Aldersmere, and coming back, Eugene was tired and very thirsty, and he begged us to let him ask for a drink just as we were getting near Robin Redbreast, and the old lady heard us talking over the wall' —

'And she heard Jass's name,' interrupted Frances, 'and' —

'Let Jacinth tell it, if you please, Frances,' said Miss Mildmay.

So Jacinth took up the story again, and related all that had happened.

Her aunt listened attentively, her face softened.

'I don't think I need read you what Lady Myrtle has written, after all,' she said, when Jacinth had finished speaking. 'I understand it well enough, and I have no doubt your father and mother would like you to go to Robin Redbreast now and then; of course, not to any extreme, or so as to interfere with your lessons or regular ways.'

'Does Lady Myrtle ask you to go to see her too?' inquired Jacinth, half timidly.

'Oh dear, no,' replied Miss Mildmay: 'she is straightforward enough. She does not pretend to want to make my acquaintance, and after all why should she? She has had plenty of time to do so if she had wished it during all these years; and honestly,' and here again she smiled quite naturally, 'I don't want to know her. I have no time for fresh acquaintances. And her interest in you children, Jacinth especially, has nothing to do with our side. It is entirely connected with the Morelands.'

'I wonder how she and our grandmother came to be such friends,' said Jacinth. 'Lady Myrtle's old home was near here, and the Morelands didn't belong to this neighbourhood.'

'No, but the Elvedons have another place in the north near your grandmother's old home,' said Miss Mildmay, who was very well posted up in such matters. 'They have never lived all the year round at Elvedon, I fancy, and now of course it is let.'

'Lady Myrtle's name used to be Harper, she told us,' said Frances, who never cared to be very long left out of the conversation, 'and there are some girls called Harper at our school. But Jacinth says it's quite a common name.'

'No, Frances, I didn't say that,' said Jacinth. 'I said it wasn't an uncommon name; that sounds quite different.'

'Possibly the Harpers at Miss Scarlett's may be some connection – distant, probably – of the Elvedons,' said Miss Mildmay, carelessly. 'But of course it is not, as Jacinth says, an uncommon name.'

But her remark set Frances's imagination to work.

'They are very, very nice girls – the nicest at the school,' she said. 'Their names are Bessie and Margaret. If you could only see them, Aunt Alison! I do so wish you would let us ask them to tea some Saturday.'

'Nonsense, child,' said Miss Mildmay, impatiently. 'I cannot begin things of that kind, as you might understand. You have companionship at school, and when you are at home you must be content with your own society. Now you must leave me: I have to see the cook, and I have made myself late already.'

'Frances,' said Jacinth on their way up-stairs to their own little sitting-room, 'I do think you are the silliest girl I ever knew. Just after all that discussion – and I can tell you I was shaking in my shoes for ever so long – just when it had ended so well, you must go and vex Aunt Alison by wanting to have the Harpers here at tea. I think you are absurd about those girls, as you always are about new friends. I don't want them here at tea, or at anything.'

'Well, I do, then, or rather I did,' said Frances doggedly. 'That's just all the difference. No girls have as dull a life as we have.'

'It's a very silly time for you to begin complaining, just when we have a chance of some amusement and change,' said Jacinth. 'I'm almost sure Lady Myrtle will ask us to spend the day, or something like that, very soon.'