Robin Redbreast: A Story for Girls

'Well, that's all I want,' said Frances, with satisfaction. 'I don't want a lot of friends. Bessie and Margaret are quite enough for me – and you, Jass. If I hadn't any one but you I should be content, especially when you're so very kind to me as you've been to-day.'

And at the appointed time, Frances made her appearance dressed for her garden party, in great spirits, very conscious of the grand effect of her sister's best black silk sash.

'And what are you going to do with yourself, Jacinth?' inquired her aunt, who happened to be crossing the hall at the moment that the two girls came running down – Frances ready to start. 'Are you and Eugene going a walk? or have you lessons to do still?'

'No, I finished them all this morning, and Eugene is tired. I don't quite know what I'm going to do,' said Jacinth.

She was not the least of a complaining nature; she had no thought of complaining just then, but as Miss Mildmay's glance fell on the young figure standing there so interested in her sister's pleasure, it struck her almost for the first time, in any thorough way, that the life with her here at Thetford was somewhat lonely for her nieces, and that it was not by any means every girl of Jacinth's age who would accommodate herself to it so contentedly.

'It is always a pity when parents and children have to be separated,' she said to herself. 'It is unnatural. It should not have to be. From the effects of such a separation in my childhood, I believe I have suffered ever since. It made me hard and unable to understand family life as I might have done.'

And her tone was unusually kind and gentle when she spoke again.

'Would you care' – she began. 'I scarcely think you would, but would you care to come with me for once in a way to our girls' club? I shall be there all the afternoon giving out the lending-library books, and a good many volumes need re-covering. I could find you plenty to do, and we can have a cup of tea there.'

'Oh, I should like to come – very much,' said Jacinth, eagerly.

Miss Mildmay seemed pleased.

'Well, I think I had better make sure of you while I can have you for this one Saturday afternoon,' she said. 'In future I shall not be surprised if you spend Saturdays often with your old lady at Robin Redbreast. I have written to her, Jacinth. I am just going to post the letter.'

'Oh, thank you,' said the girl. – 'Good-bye, Francie; you see I shall not be dull without you,' and the two kissed each other affectionately.

Then Frances, escorted by Phebe, set off, and Jacinth ran up-stairs to get ready for her expedition with her aunt.

CHAPTER V.

AN OLD STORY

That Saturday afternoon passed very pleasantly for both the sisters. Jacinth earned her aunt's commendation by her quick neat-handedness and accuracy, and a modicum of praise from Miss Mildmay meant a good deal. The little misunderstanding of the morning, ending as it had done in making the aunt, an essentially just woman, blame herself for hasty judgment, had drawn her and her elder niece closer together than had yet been the case. And no doubt there was a substratum of resemblance in their natures, deeper and more real than the curious capricious likeness which had struck Marmaduke so oddly – which was indeed perhaps but a casual coming to the surface of a real underlying similarity.

Things were turning out quite other than the young uncle in his anxiety had anticipated.

'If fate had sent me Jacinth alone,' thought Miss Mildmay, 'I rather think we should have got on very well, and have fitted into each other's ways. There is so much more in her than in Frances. I strongly suspect, in spite of her looks, that Jacinth takes after our side of the house – she almost seems older than Eugenia in some ways – whereas Frances, I suppose, is her mother over again.'

But here she checked herself. Any implied disparagement of her sister-in-law she did not, even in her secret thoughts, intend or encourage, for Alison Mildmay was truly and firmly attached to her brother's wife, widely different though their characters were.

'Frances is really only a baby,' she went on thinking. 'There's no telling as yet what she will turn out.'

Jacinth on her side was conscious of a good deal of congeniality between herself and her aunt. It was not the congeniality of affection, often all the stronger for a certain amount of intellectual dissimilarity, or differences of temperament, thus leaving scope for complementary qualities which love welds together and cements; it was scarcely even that of friendliness. It consisted in a certain satisfaction and approval of Miss Mildmay's ways of seeing and doing things. The girl felt positive pleasure in her aunt's perfect 'method;' in the clear and well-considered manner in which her time was mapped out; in the quick discrimination with which she divined what would be the right place and treatment for each girl in her club; even in the beautiful order of the book-shelves and the neat clerk-like writing of the savings-bank entries. It was all so complete and accurate, with no loose ends left about – all so perfect in its way, thought Jacinth, as she cut and folded and manipulated the brown paper entrusted to her charge for the books' new coats, rewarded by her aunt's 'Very nice – very nice indeed, my dear,' when it was time to go home, and she pointed out the neat little pile of clean tidy volumes.

Frances on her side had enjoyed herself greatly. She was the only outsider, otherwise day-scholar, at the garden tea, which fact in no way lessened her satisfaction while it increased her importance.

'I wish you were a boarder, Frances,' said Margaret Harper, the younger of her two friends, as they were walking up and down a shady path in the intervals of the games all the girls had joined in. 'Don't you? It would be so nice, and I am sure we should be great, great friends – you and Bessie and I.'

'And not Jass?' said Frances. 'I shouldn't like to be a boarder unless Jass was too. Then, I daresay, I wouldn't mind.'

'We'd like to be friends with Jacinth too,' said Margaret, 'but Bessie and I don't think she cares very much about being great friends. She seems so much older, though she's only a year more than Bessie, isn't she?'

'She's fifteen,' said Frances. 'She is old in some ways, but still she and I do everything nearly together. She's very good to me. She's very nice about you, and I'm quite happy about having you and Bessie for my best friends, for Jacinth and Aunt Alison think you're the nicest girls here.'

Margaret coloured with pleasure, but with some shyness too.

'I'm glad they think we're nice,' she said; 'and I'm sure, if your aunt knew father and mother, they'd think we should be far, far better than we are, at least than I am. I don't think Bessie could be much better than she is. But a good many others of the girls are very nice indeed; they are none of them not nice, except that Prissy Beckingham talks too much and says rather rude things without meaning it, and Laura French certainly has a very bad temper. But she's always sorry for it afterwards. And who could be nicer than the Eves or Honor Falmouth.'

'I don't know them much; they're too big for me, you see,' said Frances. 'Of course I'd know them better if we were boarders. Do you like my gray frock, Margaret? It's the first day I've had on anything but black for such a time; it does feel so funny.'

'I think it's very pretty, and you've got such a beautiful sash!' said Margaret admiringly. 'But I always think you and Jacinth are so nicely dressed, even though you've been in black all the time. Bessie and I can't have anything but very plain frocks, you know. Mother couldn't afford it, for we're not at all rich.'

'I don't fancy we are, either,' said Frances; 'I shouldn't think papa would stay out in India if we were. But at Stannesley, where we lived before, granny always got us very nice dresses: she used often to send to London for them. I don't believe Aunt Alison will care so much how we are dressed. Do you have an allowance for your gloves, Margaret? We do. I got a new pair yesterday, but I'm afraid they're not very good; where are they, I wonder? Oh yes, here in my pocket; there are little whity marks in the black kid already, as if they were going to split.'

She drew the gloves out, as she spoke, but with them came something else – a doubled-up, rather soiled white card.

'What's this?' said Frances, as she unfolded it. 'Oh, I declare! Just look, Margaret – it's an old Christmas card of last year. I remember one of the children gave it me at the Sunday school, and I've never had this frock on since. Isn't it strange?'

She stood looking at the card – an ordinary enough little picture of a robin on a bough, with 'Merry Christmas' in one corner – a mixture of sadness and almost reverence in her young face. 'Last Christmas' seemed so very long ago to Frances. And indeed, so much had happened since then to change things for herself and her brother and sister, that it did naturally seem like looking back to the other side of a lifetime to recall the circumstances which then surrounded them. How well she remembered that very Sunday, the last of the old year; how they had chattered and laughed as they ran home over the frosty ground, and Uncle Marmaduke, who had just joined them, had predicted skating before the week was out! How tenderly granny had kissed them that night when they went to bed, with some little remark about the ending of the year, and how the next morning she was not well enough to get up, anxious though she was in no way to cloud or damp their enjoyment; and how the doctor had begun to come every day, and then – and then – The tears started to Frances's eyes as she seemed to live through it all again, and for a moment or two she did not speak; she forgot that Margaret was standing beside her with sympathising face.

'Dear Frances,' she said, 'does it remind you of something sad? Has it to do with when you went into mourning?'

'Yes,' said Frances, 'it was soon after last Christmas that granny – our grandmother that we lived with – got ill and died, you know, Margaret. It's for her we are still in mourning.'

'And you were very fond of her, of course?' said Margaret.

'Very, very,' said Frances.

Then she almost seemed anxious to change the subject: she was afraid of beginning to cry, which 'before all the girls' would have certainly been ill-timed. And her glance fell on the card in her hand.

'Robin Redbreast,' she said consideringly. 'Margaret, have you ever passed that lovely old house, down the lane on the Crickthorne Road, that's called "Robin Redbreast?" The bird on the card reminded me of it just now.'

'Oh yes,' said Margaret rather eagerly. 'I know it quite well. Once or twice Bessie and I have stood at the gate and looked in. Isn't it a delicious quaint old place?'

'It's perfectly beautiful,' said Frances. 'You can't think what it looks like from the inside.'

'Have you ever been inside?' questioned Margaret, evidently intensely interested. 'Do tell me about it.'

Frances glanced round, as if to make sure that no one was within hearing, partly perhaps from a feeling that Jacinth would not have liked her to go 'chattering' about their yesterday's adventure, partly from a childish love of importance and mystery.

'Is it anything you shouldn't tell me, perhaps?' said Margaret, with quick delicacy. 'Don't mind my having asked you; it wasn't – it wasn't exactly curiosity, Frances.'

And Frances, glancing at her friend, saw that her face had reddened all over. Margaret was not a pretty child, but she was very sweet-looking, with honest gray eyes and smooth brown hair. Her features were good, but the cheeks were less round than one likes to see at her age; there was a rather wistful expression about the whole face, almost suggesting premature cares and anxiety.

'Oh no, dear,' said Frances reassuringly. 'It's not that. It was rather queer, and you see we weren't quite sure at first how Aunt Alison was going to take it. And Jacinth is always rather down upon me for talking too much. But I know I may tell you, for it's quite fixed that you and Bessie are to be my best friends: it's the day-scholars that Aunt Alison doesn't want me to talk much to.'

'Yes,' agreed Margaret, 'I quite understand.'

She was in a fever, poor child, and from no selfish motive assuredly, to hear more about the mysterious house. But she restrained herself, scrupulously careful in no way to force the other's confidence.

'When I said what Robin Redbreast looked like from the inside, I meant from inside the gates,' began Frances, after a moment or two's reflection. For she was scrupulously truthful. 'I've not been inside the house – not farther than the porch. But the porch is like a little room, it is so pretty. I'll tell you how it all was; you may tell Bessie, but not any one else, because, you see, there's quite a story about it.'