TWO JACINTHS.
The porch was almost like a room. It had cushioned seats all round, a
rustic table at one side, and stained glass, tiny-paned windows. The old
lady hurried through it, looking back over her shoulder to say, 'Sit
down for a minute or two. I will order some milk for the little boy,'
and nothing loth, the children did so, though in silence.
Then Eugene glanced round in triumph.
'There now,' he said, 'you see I was right. She doesn't mind a bit. I
shouldn't wonder if she brought us out cakes too.'
'_Hush_,' said Frances, 'you needn't talk like that, Eugene. You were as
frightened as anything when she first came out. And how can you be so
greedy?'
'Hush,' said Jacinth in her turn, and still more authoritatively. 'Don't
you hear? she's coming back.'
The door standing slightly ajar was pushed open more widely, disclosing
a trim-looking maid, carrying a tray with a large glass jug full of
milk, and--joyful sight!--a plate of small brown crisp-looking cakes.
Eugene's eyes glistened, though, poor little chap, it was more at the
sight of the milk than the cakes, for he was very thirsty indeed. But he
sat still, to outward appearance patiently enough, for just behind the
maid came the old lady again, looking quite eager and excited, a bright
spot of colour on each cheek.
'Put the tray on the little table,' she said. 'Yes, that will do. You
need not stay;' and the trim maid disappeared again.
Lady Myrtle poured out a glass of milk and gave it to Eugene.
'Your sisters will excuse my attending to you first, I am sure,' she
said. 'You are very thirsty, I know.--Now, will you two have some milk
and some cake?' she went on, turning to Jacinth and Frances.
Jacinth felt half inclined to refuse, but something in the old lady's
manner made it difficult to do so. She did not seem accustomed to have
even her suggestions disregarded, and her invitation was more like a
command.
'After your brother has finished his milk,' their hostess went on,
'perhaps he would like to walk about the garden a little with your maid,
or if he is tired, there is a nice arbour over there in the corner. I
want to speak to you two a little. I have some questions to ask you, but
I want you to understand that I will not invite you to come in till you
have got leave from--from your parents or your guardians. When I was a
child I would not have entered any stranger's house without leave, and I
approve of strict ways of bringing up children.'
The girls listened respectfully, making a little sign of assent. But
Eugene's whole attention had been given to the milk and cakes. Now that
his thirst was satisfied, he began to think about others, and for the
first time found his voice.
'Mayn't Phebe have some milk and cake, too, please?' he said. 'We've
been a drefful long walk. I'm sure Phebe's firsty too.'
Phebe blushed scarlet, but in spite of her terror, her good manners--and
she was a specially good-mannered girl--did not forsake her.
'Master Eugene, my dear,' she said quietly. 'You forget I am not a
little young gentleman like you.--If I might take his glass and plate to
the arbour, my lady, he would be very happy, and out of the way.'
Lady Myrtle smiled benignly. She liked 'tact.'
'Certainly, my good girl,' she said, 'and take a glass and some cakes
for yourself too.--That is a nice-mannered girl,' she added to Jacinth
and Frances. 'She is both modest and sensible.'
'Yes,' said Jacinth, 'we like her very much. Aunt Alison got her for us
before we came here.'
Lady Myrtle's face grew grave.
'Is Aunt Alison the relation you live with?' she asked. 'Is her name Mrs
Alison? And where and with whom did you live before? Have you no
parents? I am not asking out of curiosity, but because I think you must
be related to a very dear friend of mine--now dead.' Here her breath
seemed to catch her voice. 'I may be mistaken, but I do not think so.'
'Our parents are in India,' said Jacinth. 'Our father is Colonel
Mildmay, and Aunt Alison is his sister. Alison is her first name. We
have only lived with her since our--grandmother, Mrs Denison, died.'
'_Denison!_' repeated Lady Myrtle, 'I was sure of it. But _Mrs_ Denison?
I cannot understand it. Are you not making a mistake, my dear? Are you
sure that your grandmother was _Mrs_ Denison? Was she not'----
'Mrs Denison was only our _step_-grandmother,' interrupted Jacinth,
eagerly. Frances could not blame her now for explaining this! 'She was
very good to us, but--she wasn't our own grandmother. _She_ died before
we were born. She was mamma's mother, and I am called after her. She was
Lady Jacinth Denison, and'----
'I knew it,' exclaimed the old lady. 'And her name before she was
married was'----
Jacinth hesitated a little. It is sometimes rather confusing to remember
relations so far back.
'I know,' said Frances; 'it was More'----but here she too stopped.
'Moreland?' said Lady Myrtle.
The girls' faces cleared. Yes, that was it.
'But the Christian name--"Jacinth"--satisfied me,' said the old lady.
'The name, and your face, my dear,' to Jacinth herself. 'Thank you, for
answering my questions. Perhaps I must not keep you any longer to-day,
but I will write to your aunt--Miss Mildmay--Miss Alison Mildmay--I
think I have heard of her at Thetford--and ask her to allow you to come
to see me again very soon. If I keep you longer just now, she may be
uneasy.'
'Oh no,' said Frances, 'she won't be at home when we get back. It's one
of the days she's out all day--till after we're in bed, generally.'
'Dear me!' said Lady Myrtle, 'she must be a very busy person.'
'Yes,' said Jacinth, 'she is. She is very, _very_ useful, I know. And
one couldn't have expected her to give up all the things she'd been at
so many years, all of a sudden, when we came. We don't mind, except that
it seems a little lonely sometimes; but--I don't think Aunt Alison
cares much for children or girls like us. She says she's got out of the
way of it. But she's quite kind.'
'You have a governess, I suppose?' asked Lady Myrtle.
'No,' said Jacinth, 'we go every day but Saturday to Miss Scarlett's
school.'
She coloured a little as she said it, for she had an instinct that
'school' for girls was hardly one of the things that her hostess had
been accustomed to in _her_ youth, and notwithstanding Jacinth's
decision of character, she was apt to be much influenced by the opinions
and even prejudices of those about her. But still she knew that Miss
Scarlett's was really a somewhat exceptional school.
'To Miss Scarlett's,' repeated Lady Myrtle. 'I have heard of it. I
believe it is very nice, but still--I prefer home education. But perhaps
I should not say so. No doubt your parents and guardians have acted for
the best. I should like you to tell Miss Alison Mildmay all I have asked
you, and I will write to her. And in the meantime, that she may not
think me too eccentric an old woman, pray tell her that I was--that your
own grandmother--I like you to call her that--Lady Jacinth Moreland,
afterwards Lady Jacinth Denison, and I, were the--yes, the very dearest
of friends when we were young. It is possible that Miss Alison Mildmay
may have heard my name from your mother. I think your mother--what is
her name--"Eugenia," oh yes, I remember--I think your mother must have
heard of me even in her childhood. My unmarried name was Harper, "Myrtle
Harper;" your grandmother and I first took to each other, I think,
because we had such uncommon names.'
'Harper!' exclaimed Frances eagerly, 'there are some--what is it,
Jacinth?--I mean Bessie and Margar'----
'We must go,' said Jacinth, getting up, as she spoke. 'Frances, will you
call Eugene? and'--turning to her hostess, 'thank you _very_ much for
being so kind. And oh, if you will ask Aunt Alison to let us come again,
it would be such a pleasure.'
She raised her beautiful eyes to Lady Myrtle's face. A mist came over
the keen bright old pair gazing at her in return. Partly perhaps to
conceal this sudden emotion, Lady Myrtle stooped--for, tall though
Jacinth was for her age, she was shorter than her grandmother's old
friend--and kissed the soft up-turned cheek. 'My dear, you are _so_ like
her--my Jacinth, sometimes,' she murmured, 'that it is almost too much
for me.'
Then a practical thought struck her.
'You have not told me your address at Thetford,' she said. 'I had better
have it, though no doubt Miss Alison Mildmay is well known in the
place.'
Jacinth gave it.
'Number 9, Market Square Place,' she said.
'Oh, I know where it is--a row of rather nice quaint old houses. Still,
you must feel rather cooped up there sometimes, after Stannesley; was
not that the Denisons' place? I was there once.'
'We miss the grounds, and--yes, we miss a good many things,' said
Jacinth simply.
'Then I hope that Robin Redbreast will make up to you for some of them,'
said Lady Myrtle. 'You know the name of my funny old house, I daresay?'
'Oh yes,' said Francis, who had just rejoined them with Eugene and
Phebe, 'we heard it the very first day. And we've always thought it
lovely--both the house and the name. And we always pass by this way when
we can, because of the gates. We call them 'Uncle Marmy's gates,' for
it was here we said good-bye to him--good-bye _properly_, I mean.'
'Kissing, and trying not to cry,' added Eugene, by way of explanation.
Lady Myrtle seemed a little startled.
'Uncle Marmy!' she repeated, 'that was your grandfather's name. I
thought your mother was an only child.'
'Yes,' said Jacinth, 'Uncle Marmaduke is not our real--not our full
uncle. He is mamma's half-brother only.'
'Oh,' exclaimed the old lady, 'now I understand.'
'But we love him just as much--_quite_ as much as if he was our whole
uncle,' said Frances, eagerly. 'He's perfectly--oh, he's as nice as he
can _possibly_ be.'
Lady Myrtle smiled, and gave a little pat to Frances's shining tangle of
curly hair.
'Good-bye then, my dears, for to-day,' she said.
But she stood at the gate looking after them till they reached
the corner of the lane, when some happy impulse made
Jacinth--undemonstrative Jacinth--turn round and kiss her hand to the
solitary old figure.
'She's like a sort of a grandmother to us,' said Eugene. 'What a good
thing,' with extreme self-complacency, 'I made you go in!--what a good
thing I was'--after a great effort--'wursty!'
But Jacinth's face was slightly clouded. She drew Frances a little apart
from the others.
'Frances,' she said severely, 'you must have more sense. How could you
begin about those girls at school?' Lady Myrtle, if she does notice us,
won't want to hear all the chatter and gossip of Miss Scarlett's. And
it's such a common sort of thing, the moment you hear a name, to start
up and say "Oh, _I_ know somebody called that," and then go on about
your somebodies that no one wants to hear anything of.'
Frances looked rather ashamed. She was barely two years younger than her
sister, but on almost every subject--on questions of good manners and
propriety above all--Jacinth's verdict was always accepted by her as
infallible, though whence Jacinth had derived her knowledge on such
points it would have been difficult to say. No one could have been less
a woman of the world than the late Mrs Denison; indeed, the much misused
but really sweet old word 'homely' might have been applied to her in its
conventional sense without unkindly severity. And no life could have
been simpler, though from that very fact not without a certain dignity
of its own, than the family life at Stannesley, which was in reality the
only training these girls had ever known.
'I'm very sorry, Jass,' said the younger sister, penitently. 'It was
only--it did seem funny that her name was Harper, when I am so fond of
Bessie and Marg'----
'I'm getting tired of your always talking of them,' said Jacinth. 'I
daresay they're nice enough'----
'And they're _quite_ ladies,' interposed Frances, 'though they are so
very poor.'
'I wouldn't look down on them for _that_; I should think you might know
me better,' said Jacinth. 'We're not at all rich ourselves, though I
suppose papa and mamma seem so in India with all the parties and things
they're obliged to have. And I never said the girls weren't "quite
ladies," as you say. But I know how it will end: in a little while you
won't like Bessie and Margaret any better than Prissy Beckingham. You
fly at people so at first.'
'I don't think it will be that way this time,' said Frances in a tone
of quiet conviction. 'There's something _different_ about the Harpers.'
'It isn't a very uncommon name,' said Jacinth. 'There are all sorts of
Harpers. Why, at Stannesley, the village schoolmaster's wife was called
Harper before she married, I remember. And then Lord Elvedon's family
name is Harper.'
They had drawn nearer to the other two by this time, and Phebe overheard
the last words.
'If you please, Miss Jacinth, that is Lady Myrtle's family. Her father
was Lord Elvedon, two or three back, and the Lord Elvedon now is a
nephew or a cousin's son to her, though they never come near the place;
it's been let ever since I can remember.'
'I wonder if she was brought up at Elvedon,' said Frances. 'It must seem
rather sad to her, if she was there when she was a little girl, to have
no one belonging to her there now.'
Altogether the adventure--and a real adventure it was--gave them plenty
to think of and to talk about all the way home and after they got there.
Eugene forgot his fatigue, and chattered briskly about the goodness of
the little brown cakes, till he got a snub from Jacinth about being so
greedy. His appetite, however, did not seem to have suffered, and he was
quite ready to do justice to the tea waiting for them at home, though
not without some allusions to Lady Myrtle's delicious cakes, and wishes
that Aunt Alison would sometimes give them 'a change from bread and
butter.'
For one of Miss Mildmay's fixed ideas about children was that they could
not be brought up too plainly.
'We do have a change sometimes,' said Jacinth. 'We always have golden
syrup on Saturdays and jam on Sundays, and you know we've had buns two
or three times on birthdays.'
'Other children have buns and cakes far oftener than us,' said Eugene.
'Like we used to at Stannesley.'
'It was quite different there,' said Jacinth; 'a big country-house and
baking at home.'
'_Everything_ was nice at Stannesley,' said Frances with a sigh. 'Granny
and Uncle Marmy really loved us; that makes the difference.'
'Aunt Alison loves us in her way,' said Jacinth. 'Everybody can't be the
same. I think you're getting into a very bad habit of grumbling,
Frances. And this afternoon you really should be pleased. For I
shouldn't at all wonder if Lady Myrtle often asks us to go to see her,
and that would be a treat and a change. But what you say about poor
granny and Uncle Marmy reminds me to say something. You really needn't
fly up so on the defensive every time I name them; you did it again
to-day, and I'm sure Lady Myrtle must have thought it very queer, just
as if I'----
But this second reproof for her behaviour at Robin Redbreast did not
find Frances as meek as the former one, which, in deference to Jacinth's
superior knowledge on such subjects, she had felt she perhaps deserved.
'I will "fly up" as you call it,' she interrupted angrily, 'when you
talk in that cold measured way about dear granny and Uncle Marmy, as if
you were almost ashamed of them. For one thing I can't bear you to say
"poor" granny; it's not right. She was a sort of a saint, and I'm quite
sure that now she's'----But here Frances burst into tears.
Jacinth felt sorry, but annoyed and irritated also. She blamed herself
for having begun any private talk of the kind before Eugene and Phebe;
for, as sometimes happened when they had come in late, Phebe was having
tea with them this evening. And she felt conscious also of deserving, to
a certain extent, her sister's blame. But Jacinth had a good deal of
self-control.
'I cannot understand,' she said quietly, though the colour rose to her
cheeks--'I cannot understand how you can think such things of me--as if
I--as if anybody could have loved _them_ more than I did; as if'----But
here the tears rose to her own eyes.
Frances was at once melted.
'I didn't mean _that_,' she said. 'I know you did. I wouldn't love _you_
if I didn't know it. But it's your manner; you seem in such a hurry
always to explain that granny wasn't our own grandmother.'
'I don't think that's fair,' said Jacinth. 'How could I possibly have
helped explaining about it when it is _only_ because of our own
grandmother that Lady Myrtle cares anything at all about us. And I
wasn't in a hurry to explain; don't you remember that Lady Myrtle kept
asking if we were sure our grandmother was only _Mrs_?'
Yes, that had been so, but still the slightly hurt feeling which
Jacinth's tone about the dear Stannesley people had more than once given
Frances still remained, and she might have said more, had not her sister
prevented her doing so.
'Anyway,' she said, 'we need not say any more about it just now.'
After tea they got out their lesson-books, anxious to do all they could,
so as to wake on Saturday morning with the delightful sensation of a
real whole holiday. But their long walk, perhaps the excitement of their
adventure, had tired them. Lessons, with Frances especially, seemed more
difficult than usual, and after a good many yawns and not a few groans,
she decided that it was no use to attempt anything calling for a 'clear
head' that evening.
'I'll just copy out my dictation and exercises,' she said, 'and do all
the fresh learning to-morrow morning. Won't you do so too, Jass, for
there are two or three things we can learn together?'
'Very well,' said Jacinth, though with a little sigh, 'perhaps it would
be better.'
It was not only that she was tired--her head was full of Robin Redbreast
and its owner, and all manner of fancies and castles in the air were
crowding upon her. It was really so romantic, she thought; it was not
silly to picture to herself the delightful possibilities of the future.
'Suppose Lady Myrtle really gets very fond of us'--she said 'us,' but
'_me_' would perhaps have been more correct, and after all this was
scarcely unnatural, as it was she who had specially recalled the Jacinth
Moreland of her enthusiastic youthful affection to the old
lady--'supposing she in a sort of way adopted us--or me'--for Jacinth
was not selfish in the common acceptation of the word, though
self-important and fond of ruling, 'what happiness it might bring us!
She doesn't seem to have any relations, and she must be very well off.
Supposing she took us to live with her, and treated us just like her own
children, I wonder if mamma wouldn't come home then, and papa too
perhaps. For of course, if they knew we were going to be well off, papa
wouldn't worry so about staying out in India his full time and all that.
How I should _love_ to be the one to be able to do everything for them
all.'
Still it would not do to begin speculating on what might happen in the
far future when--Jacinth felt shocked when she realised that, in
picturing herself as Lady Myrtle's possible heir, she was anticipating
the old lady's death; yet she certainly could not 'fit in' the idea of
their all living together at Robin Redbreast with its present
chatelaine. And she laughed at her own absurdity.
'Papa is so independent,' she reflected. 'Even if _mamma_ had a lot of
money, I don't believe he'd be satisfied without working as hard as
ever. And of course he loves his profession.'
Then she determined not to be silly, and to think no more about it. But
her dreams that night were very fantastic and rosy-hued. She awoke in
the morning from a vision of a wonderful room of which the walls were
painted all over with robins, which suddenly burst out singing her name,
'Jacinth, Jacinth,' to find that Frances was awake and calling to her.
'Oh Francie, I was having _such_ an interesting dream,' she said. 'I
wish you hadn't awakened me: I can't remember what was dreams and what
wasn't,' she went on sleepily. 'Did we really go inside Uncle Marmy's
gates, and see?'----
'Of course we did,' said Frances, 'and I've got such a good thought.
Don't you think we might go that way again to-day and take mamma's last
photograph with us? Lady Myrtle would be sure to like to see it, and we
needn't ask for her, you know. And it would keep her from forgetting us,
and anyway we might walk round the garden, I should think.'
'No,' said Jacinth, 'we can't do anything like that without Aunt
Alison's leave, and of course we can't ask for leave unless Lady Myrtle
writes to Aunt Alison. And there's no telling if she will. She may be
one of those whimsical old people that mean to do a thing, and then
think better of it and do nothing.'
Frances's face fell.
'Oh, I do hope not,' she said. 'Somehow I don't _think_ she's that sort
of old lady.'
Nor in her heart did Jacinth. The expression of her misgivings had been
as much or more to damp or check herself as Frances. For she was
startled to find how wildly she had been indulging in building
air-castles. Few, if any, even of those she had spent her life among,
knew Jacinth Mildmay thoroughly, or had any suspicion of the
impressionableness, the almost fantastic imagination, hidden under her
quiet, almost cold exterior. But to some extent she knew herself better
than is often the case at her age. She was well aware that she needed
strict holding in hand; she sometimes even went too far in judging as
contemptible weaknesses, feelings and impulses which were full of good.
But as regards the fancies which since yesterday had been so absorbing
her, she was in the right. Even apparently harmless hopes and wishes
dependent on the caprice, or, if carried where they _may_ lead to,
contingent on the life or death of others, are better checked at once.
Indulgence in such can do no good, and _may_ do harm.
They had not seen their aunt the night before. And her manner was
somewhat 'carried' and preoccupied when she kissed the girls as they
entered the dining-room, where she was already seated at the table
waiting to read prayers.
A slight misgiving came over Jacinth. She glanced at the sideboard where
the morning letters were always placed. Yes, one or two torn wrappers
were lying there: evidently the letters had come and been opened. For
Miss Alison Mildmay was, as Frances expressed it, 'a _dreadfully_ early
getter-up,' and had always an hour or more to herself before the younger
members of the household appeared.
I am afraid Jacinth's attention that morning was rather distracted. She
sat glancing at her aunt's profile, cold and almost hard, as she was
accustomed to see it, but with just now the addition of some irritable
lines about the forehead which were certainly not _always_ there.
'Something has vexed her, I am certain,' said Jacinth to herself. 'I do
wonder if it has anything to do with Lady Myrtle. Oh dear, if she has
written so as to vex Aunt Alison, and we get blamed for it, and
everything is spoilt!'