A COURAGEOUS PLEADER.
Lady Myrtle was standing in the porch. It seemed to her only fitting
that she should come thus far to welcome such a guest, and something in
her almost tremulously affectionate greeting touched Mrs Mildmay keenly.
'It is _so_ good of you--meeting me like this,' the younger woman
whispered, as she threw her arms round her old friend. 'And, oh, how
delightful it is to have you and this to come to!'
'My dear, my dear,' said Lady Myrtle, 'don't thank me. Only let me see
that you and your children are happy and at home with me; that is _all_
I care about.'
And again she kissed the Eugenia she had not seen since her childhood.
Mrs Mildmay was very like Frances; correctly speaking, one should put it
the other way, but as a new actor on the scene of this little story it
is natural thus to express it. Her face had something indescribably
childlike about it; her blue eyes were almost wistful, though the whole
expression was bright and happy and very changeful. Yet there was plenty
of 'character'--no dearth of good firm lines, with yet an entire absence
of anything denoting hardness or obstinacy; the whole giving from the
first candid glance an impression of extreme ingenuousness and
single-mindedness.
[Illustration: 'It is so good of you, meeting me like this,' the younger
woman whispered, as she threw her arms round her old friend.]
'You are not like your mother,' said Lady Myrtle, when the little group
had made its way into the drawing-room where tea was already waiting. 'I
knew you were not. Yet something in your voice recalls her. I suppose
you can _scarcely_ remember her,' she went on, 'not well enough to see
the really marvellous resemblance between her and my child here--my
child as well as yours?' and she smiled at Jacinth who was standing by,
and laid her hand affectionately on the girl's arm.
'Oh yes,' Mrs Mildmay replied, 'I remember enough for that. And then I
have one or two excellent portraits, besides the large one at
Stannesley; at least my father always told me they were excellent. And
even when Jassie was quite tiny, he saw the likeness and was delighted
at it. But I--I am quite "Denison" I know, and so are Francie and
Eugene. The odd thing is that Jassie is also in some ways more like the
Mildmays than the two others.'
'I have never seen your husband, you know,' said Lady Myrtle. 'I can't
say that the likeness to good Miss Alison Mildmay has ever struck me.'
The quaint way in which the old lady said it made them all smile a
little--all, that is to say, except Jacinth. She had not altogether
relished her mother's remark.
But that evening was a most happy one--perhaps the very happiest the two
younger children had ever known--and one certainly to be marked with a
white stone in the memory of all the five who spent it together. By a
tacit agreement no uncertain or anxious questions were touched upon. Mrs
Mildmay was able to give a good account of their father's health at the
time of her leaving him, to the children, and made them all laugh by her
account of her brother Marmaduke's description of the terrible formality
of that first evening at Market Square Place. She seemed gifted with a
wonderful amount of fun and merriment: Jacinth caught herself laughing
after a fashion which was very rare with her.
'Mamma is ever so much _younger_ than I,' she said to herself when she
found herself alone for the night. 'She is as charming and sweet as she
can be. But I can foresee some things pretty clearly. It is a good thing
I am of a different character. What would happen if we were all as
impulsive and'--'childish' was the word in her thoughts, but again she
felt a little startled at the length to which her criticism of her
mother was going, and pulled herself up--'as impulsive as Francie, and
as mamma must be by nature?'
And she fell asleep in the midst of a not unpleasing picture of herself
as the wise, considerate prop of the whole family, looked up to by her
parents, leant upon by Lady Myrtle, a Lady Bountiful to all within her
reach, a----But here I think her imaginings probably faded into the
phantasmagoria of dreams.
Mrs Mildmay had bidden her elder girl a fond good-night; then she
hastened along the passage for a moment's peep into Frances's little
room.
'The child will be asleep, I daresay,' she thought to herself. 'It is
almost selfish of me to risk waking her. But I will be very careful, and
I really cannot resist the delight of seeing them in bed, of knowing
they are under the same roof again at last.'
And she stole in. It was a moonlight night. Francie had been in bed some
little time, but she was not asleep. She was lying with her eyes wide
open gazing out through the unshaded window, which was within her view,
at the tree tops, illumined by the silvery radiance, and swaying gently
in the soft night breeze; her shaggy hair making a background on the
pillow for her sweet, childish face. And at the faint sound her mother
made on entering she started up.
'Mamma, mamma!' she cried, as Mrs Mildmay knelt down and threw her arms
round the little figure. 'My own little mamma, my own, my own! to think
it _is_ you, to think I really and truly have you. Oh, can I _ever_ be
so happy again! Oh, mamma darling, I don't know _how_ to thank God
enough; that was what I was thinking about when you came in. No, no, you
didn't wake me. I haven't been asleep.'
'My darling, my own little girl!' whispered Mrs Mildmay.
'Mamma dear,' Frances went on, after a moment's beautiful silence. 'I
feel already that I can tell you _everything_. Now there's one thing;
it's come into my mind again since I've been in bed; I'm afraid I forgot
about it in the first _rush_ of happiness, you know, but now I've
remembered. Mamma, don't you think when we're awfully happy we should
try to do something for other people--that God means us to? Well, it's
about the Harpers. Oh, mamma, I'm afraid they are having such very bad
troubles just now.'
Mrs Mildmay started a little.
'You don't mean, dear--you haven't heard anything _quite_ lately, about
the father, Captain Harper, have you?'
'No,' said Frances, 'I've not heard anything. Miss Falmouth was the only
girl who knew about them away from school, and she has left. But you
remember I wrote to you that Bessie and Margaret mightn't come back, and
they haven't. And I'm _sure_ it's because they've got poorer with their
father being so ill. Mamma, did you hear anything more from their aunt
before you left?'
'Yes,' said Mrs Mildmay sadly. 'I heard a good deal. All there is to
hear, indeed. A letter from the eldest daughter, Camilla Harper--the one
who wrote to you--came to Mrs Lyle just before I left. She showed it to
me. I am afraid it is as you say, Francie; they have very heavy troubles
and anxieties indeed.'
'And _don't_ you think they're good, really very good people, mamma?'
asked the child eagerly.
'I think they seem quite wonderfully good,' said her mother, warmly. 'I
cannot understand; I mean I can scarcely realise, how they can all be so
brave and cheerful, when one thing after another--one misfortune after
another--has come to try them so terribly. Yes, it almost frightens me
to think of our happiness in comparison with their troubles, Francie.'
'But mamma,' and Frances hesitated. 'If we can do anything to help them?
Wouldn't that make it seem _righter_? I mean as if we were meant to do
it.'
'I _am_ going to try,' said Mrs Mildmay. Her voice was low and quiet,
but it carried assurance with it. 'Your father and I talked a great deal
about it after we heard the worst of things from Mrs Lyle. And we
decided that it would be only right, even at the risk of annoying or
even offending Lady Myrtle. It seems "meant" as you say, Francie--the
coincidences of it all--my coming straight here, and that letter
reaching Mrs Lyle just before I left. So we quite made up our minds
about it.'
Frances drew a deep breath of thankfulness.
'It does seem as if everything I have most wanted was going to come,'
she said.
Then, as her mother, after kissing her again, was turning to leave the
room, telling her she really 'must go to sleep,' the little girl called
her back for a moment.
'Mamma, dear,' she said. 'If you don't mind, would you please not say
anything to Jass about what we've been talking of.'
Mrs Mildmay looked a little surprised.
'Why not, dear? Why should I not tell her as well as you?'
'Oh well, because Jass didn't know Bessie and Margaret nearly as well as
I did, and you must have seen by her letters that she didn't care about
them like me,' said Frances.
'But that does not, in one way, much signify,' replied her mother. 'Once
Jacinth knows all about them she will feel as we do: your father and I
do not know any of them personally. It is not as friends of ours that I
would in any way plead their cause with their own near relation.'
'No, of course not,' said Frances. But still she did not seem satisfied.
'Jacinth has always been so afraid of vexing Lady Myrtle by seeming to
interfere,' she said. 'And even Aunt Alison said it was better not.'
'Very likely not. You are both too young to have it in your power to do
anything. Still, I am sure you have lost no opportunity of speaking
highly of the girls whom you _do_ think so highly of.'
'Yes,' said Frances, quietly. 'I have done that. But somehow, mamma, I
have vexed Jass about it several times. I shouldn't like her to think I
had "spoilt" your first evening, by beginning about the Harpers. That's
what she might say.'
'I will give her no reason for being vexed with you, dear. I can
understand her fear of vexing Lady Myrtle--I feel the same myself--and
when I tell her, Jacinth, all about it, it will be in no way mixed up
with you, Francie. She will only need to understand the whole thing
thoroughly to agree with us.'
And Frances fell asleep in happy confidence that 'mamma' would put it
all right. How delightful it was to have her at hand to lean upon!
But Mrs Mildmay had spoken rather more confidently about Jacinth than
she quite felt. Frances's words reminded her of the cold, unsympathising
way in which her elder daughter had alluded in her letters to the
Harpers; after knowing all that Frances had written to her mother.
'Jacinth is thoughtful and considerate beyond her years,' thought she,
'but I do trust she is no way selfish or calculating. Oh no, that is
impossible. I must not be fanciful. Marmy warned me that I might find
her self-contained and even self-opinionated, but that is very different
from anything mean or selfish. It is sad, all the same, to know nothing
of one's own child for one's self, at first hand. Whatever the poor
Harpers' trials have been,' she went on, as Frances had once said to
Bessie, 'at least they have been spared this terrible, unnatural
separation.'
And the thought brought back to her again the task that was before her
on the morrow. She was not a little nervous about it. 'But I must not
delay,' she said to herself. 'If anything is to be done to help them in
this present crisis, it must be at once. And I promised Mrs Lyle not to
put off. I wonder when I shall have the best chance of a good talk with
Lady Myrtle. Alison is coming over in the morning, she said. Naturally
she is anxious to hear all about Frank. I wish it had not happened that
I was obliged to begin upon a certainly _painful_, a possibly offensive
topic with the dear old lady just at the very first! And when she is so
very, very good to us!'
But Eugenia Mildmay was not the type of woman to shrink from what she
believed to be an undoubted duty because it was painful to herself, or
even to others.
'Dear little Frances,' was almost her last waking thought, 'I feel as if
I already understood _her_ perfectly. And oh, I do hope I shall be wise
and judicious with my Jassie too.'
Every trace of fatigue had vanished from Mrs Mildmay's bright face when
they all met at breakfast the next morning; the 'all' including Lady
Myrtle, who had now begun again to come down early, since the fine mild
weather had, for the time, dispelled her chronic bronchitis. She looked
round the table with a beaming face.
'It is long since I have had such a party at breakfast,' she said.
'Never before, I think, indeed, since I have been settled at Robin
Redbreast, and that is a good while ago. To make it perfect we only want
your husband, Eugenia, whom you know, I have never seen.'
'Well, I hope it will not be very long before you do see him; and I can
assure you he is very eager to see you, dear Lady Myrtle,' replied Mrs
Mildmay.
'_How_ like mamma is to Frances!' thought Jacinth. It struck her even
more forcibly this morning than the day before.
'Is Colonel Mildmay dark or fair? Does he resemble his sister?' inquired
the old lady.
Mrs Mildmay considered.
'No; I scarcely think so,' she said. 'And yet there is a family
likeness. The odd thing is, as I was saying, that though Jacinth "takes
after" my mother's family so decidedly, yet she is more like the
Mildmays than either Francie or Eugene.'
'I don't see it, I confess,' said Lady Myrtle drily, and Mrs Mildmay
caught for the first time a glimpse of the cold manner the old lady
could assume if not altogether well pleased. But in less than an instant
Lady Myrtle seemed herself to regret it. 'I mean to say I see no
resemblance in Jacinth to Miss Alison Mildmay. Of course I cannot judge
as to her having any to her father.'
'Papa has dark hair, like Jass,' said Frances. 'But he's very
nice-looking.'
'The "but" doesn't sound very complimentary to me, Francie,' said
Jacinth laughingly; and her mother, glancing at her, was struck by the
wonderful charm of the smile that overspread her face.
'I wasn't thinking of you that way,' said Frances, bluntly. 'I was
thinking of Aunt Alison.'
'Aunt Alison's not pretty,' said Eugene. 'Her's too--not smiley enough,
not like mamma.'
'Eugene!' said his mother. But Eugene did not seem at all snubbed.
'_A propos_ of Miss Alison Mildmay,' said Lady Myrtle, 'she is coming to
see you to-day, is she not? She must be anxious to hear all about her
brother.'
'Yes,' said Mrs Mildmay, 'she will be coming quite early. Jassie told us
you are often busy in the morning, so I thought that would be the best
time for me to be with her.'
'Jacinth knows all my ways,' said Lady Myrtle with a smile of approval.
'Yes, that will do nicely; Miss Mildmay must stay to luncheon, and then
you and I, Eugenia, can drive her back. Will you drive with me this
afternoon? I always enjoy a talk in a carriage along our quiet roads.'
'Thank you; that will be very pleasant,' said Mrs Mildmay. And no one
would have suspected the slight sinking of heart with which she said to
herself that this would clearly be the best opportunity for what she had
to lay before her kind hostess as to the poor Harpers.
'We begin school again on Monday,' said Frances. 'I do hope it will be
fine till then. Jass, won't you stay with Eugene and me this afternoon?
We do so want to get the house we are building finished so that we can
have tea in it on Lady Myrtle's birthday.'
'Yes,' Mrs Mildmay interposed quickly, 'that will do very well, and
to-morrow perhaps Jassie may drive with you, Lady Myrtle, and then I
will invite myself to spend the afternoon with you two, shall I?'
Her quick tact, founded on sympathy, warned her of the possibility of
the elder girl feeling herself thrown out of the place she had naturally
come to feel as her own beside the old lady.
'And Lady Myrtle is so devoted to Jacinth too. She would miss her, even
though she would not like to seem to prefer her to me,' thought the
mother; and the expression in the two faces rewarded her for her
consideration.
Frances had her own ideas as to her mother's intentions in connection
with the proposed drive that afternoon. But she was already perfectly at
rest in the delightful certainty that 'mamma would know what was best to
do.' So, though deeply interested and in a sense anxious, she had no
nervous misgiving as to the result of the effort which she felt sure was
going to be made in behalf of her friends, and she spent the afternoon
very happily with her sister and brother, working at the famous house
they had been allowed to build in a corner of the garden. It was very
interesting, and even Jacinth, in some ways less 'grown-up' than she
liked to fancy herself, found it very absorbing. By half-past four
o'clock they had all worked so hard that they really began to be very
tired and rather hot.
'I wish it was tea-time,' said Jacinth. 'We are all to have tea together
while the holidays last. Lady Myrtle thought mamma would like it. And,
of course, you and Eugene, Francie, will come in at the end of dinner as
you did last night. I wonder why Lady Myrtle and mamma are so long. I
suppose they've gone a long drive.'
'They started rather late,' said Frances. 'Aunt Alison was talking to
Lady Myrtle a good while after the carriage was at the door. But I
wonder they're not back by now. Don't you think we'd better go in now
and get tidy, so as to be quite ready when they come?'
They did so. But for once Frances was the more expeditious of the two.
When Mrs Mildmay entered her own room on returning from the drive, a
little figure, unexceptionably neat as to hair and hands and garments,
darted out from behind the window-curtains whence she had been watching
the drive up to the house.
'Mamma, dear,' she exclaimed, 'don't ring for Syme. Mayn't I help you to
take off your things for once? I do so want to ask you--you don't mind,
do you?--_have_ you been able to say anything to Lady Myrtle? I had a
feeling that you meant to speak about it the very first chance you
could.'
Mrs Mildmay looked a little agitated.
'Francie, dear,' she said, 'I haven't time to tell you about it just
now. We must hurry down to tea. But I have done _something_, and I
almost hope I have made a beginning towards more. All I can, all it
would be right for me to tell you, I will. But I scarcely think I can do
so to-day. Come to my room quite early to-morrow morning, half an hour
or so before breakfast. As soon as we have had tea just now, I have
promised to help--at least she puts it so--Lady Myrtle to write a rather
difficult letter.'
'Is it to the Harpers?' half whispered Frances.
Her mother nodded.
Frances gave a sort of skip of joy.
'Oh, mamma, how lovely!' she exclaimed. 'How clever you are! I do
believe everything's going to come right.'
'Don't be too hopeful, dear. But at least their _present_ terrible
difficulties will be a little smoothed, I trust.
And it was no use telling Frances not to be too hopeful. She seemed
almost to dance as she followed her mother down-stairs, and the
drawing-room at Robin Redbreast had rarely, if ever, heard brighter talk
and merrier laughter than went on this afternoon round the tea-table,
where Jacinth did the honours as if she were the recognised daughter of
the house.
It went perhaps somewhat against the grain with her to be told, though
in the kindest manner, that Lady Myrtle and Mrs Mildmay had some
business letters to write in the boudoir, and must not be disturbed till
post-time. But she was a sensible girl on the whole, and really glad to
see the cordial understanding between her mother and the friend who
seemed to her now by adoption almost a second mother. And she was
without the slightest suspicion that the letters in question concerned
the Harpers, of whom indeed for some time past she had almost left off
thinking at all.
'Possibly it's already something about the London appointment for papa,'
she thought. 'Lady Myrtle is always so energetic and business-like. I
daresay she would have _liked_ to consult me about it, but then it would
scarcely have seemed right not to make mamma the first of course.'
And she answered so pleasantly that she and Frances had a duet they
wanted to practise before playing it to their mother, that Mrs Mildmay's
slight instinctive misgiving as to her elder daughter's docility and
reasonableness was for the time completely dispersed.
'To-morrow, you know, dear Jacinth, you are to drive with me,' said Lady
Myrtle, 'while your mother is going to have Francie and Eugene all to
herself.'
Perhaps the result of Mrs Mildmay's conversation with her hostess during
their drive that afternoon will be best shown by one of the letters
which the Robin Redbreast postbag carried off that very evening. It was
addressed to Mrs Harper at a certain number in a quiet bye-street in the
north-west of London, and ran thus:
ROBIN REDBREAST, THETFORD,
_May_ 4, 187-.
MY DEAR MRS HARPER--I write to you instead of to your
husband, Captain Harper, who is by birth my nephew, as I
understand that he might be upset by an unexpected letter,
being at present in a critical state of health. I regret
that it should be so, and that your anxieties should be
increased by other difficulties, and I enclose a draft on my
London bankers for L500, which will, I trust, relieve you
from your most pressing cares. I ask you to accept this in a
kindly spirit, though from a complete stranger. It is the
gift of an aged woman who is always glad to have the
privilege of helping those whose difficulties may become
privately known to her, as well as of responding to the many
public appeals for assistance. But it is not the gift of a
relative. From a certain date, now many years ago, my
brother Bernard Harper and all connected with him died to me
as completely as though he had never existed, and I feel it
only honest to put the matter in its true light at the risk
of wounding not unnatural susceptibilities. I ask you also
to accept my sincere good wishes for Captain Harper's
restoration to health, and I remain, yours faithfully,
MYRTLE CAMILLA GOODACRE.
It was a strange letter. And strange as it was, it had been more
eccentric still, but for Mrs Mildmay's strenuous efforts to soften its
expressions and accentuate the real sympathy which had dictated the
gift. It was a strange position altogether. The tears had risen into the
old lady's bright eyes when her old friend Jacinth Moreland's daughter
laid before her the sad facts of the case, and the life or death that
not improbably hung upon her response. Never had good cause a better
advocate. She read aloud the letter written by Camilla Harper to her
aunt in India, and confided by Mrs Lyle to Mrs Mildmay; she told of
Captain Harper's honourable career, and of the brave struggle made by
him and his wife against the overwhelming difficulties which had come
upon them through no fault--no imprudence even--of their own; she
described the good promise of their children, how the sons were all
already more or less 'distinguished, the daughters models of girlish
excellence.'
'I quite believe it all,' the old lady calmly replied. 'It is very
wonderful; there must be a good strain somewhere in the blood, and
struggle and adversity are grand teachers, we are told. It is very
interesting, and I am most ready to help them in any way you advise, my
dear Eugenia, or that you think would be accepted. But understand me, I
would do the same if I had never heard their name till to-day. It is
_not_ as relations; Bernard Harper's descendants are neither kith nor
kin of mine, and this must be understood.'
Mrs Mildmay seemed about to speak, but hesitated.
'What is it, my dear? Do not be afraid of vexing me: do say what is in
your mind,' said the old lady.
'You are so good, dear Lady Myrtle, so good and kind, that it seems
impertinence for me to differ from you,' the younger woman replied. 'It
was only that your words struck me curiously. _Can_ we decide and alter
things in that way? Our relations _are_ our relations; can we, when it
suits us, say they are not? Can we throw off the duties and
responsibilities of relationship? Of course they vary enormously;
sometimes they scarcely exist, and one can lay down no rule. But still,
in the present case, it _is_ because the Harpers are your relations, and
yet by no fault of their own entirely alienated from you, that I have
told you about them. These are solid substantial facts; we cannot undo
_facts_.'
Lady Myrtle was silent. Mrs Mildmay glanced at her anxiously, very
anxiously. But there was no sign of irritation in the quiet old
face--only of thought, deep thought. And there was a grave softness in
the usually keen eyes, as if they were reviewing far distant or far past
scenes.
At last, 'Thank you, my dear, for your candour,' she said. 'Well, leave
that question alone. I will help this family and at once, because it
seems to me a clear duty to do so. Can you not be satisfied with this
practical response to your appeal, my dear?'
'I thank you with all my heart,' said Mrs Mildmay earnestly, 'both for
your generosity and for your patience with my presumption.'
But she evaded a direct reply to Lady Myrtle's question, and her friend
did not press her farther.
The result of this conversation we have seen in the letter with its
enclosure which was posted that very evening. The former was not a
source of unmitigated satisfaction to Mrs Mildmay. For Lady Myrtle
insisted on the insertion of the last few lines.
It would not be honest, she maintained, to withhold the expression of
her true sentiments.
So with what she _had_ achieved, Mrs Mildmay was forced to be content,
though there were times during the next day or two in which she asked
herself if perhaps she had not done more harm than good? And times
again, when with the rebound of her naturally buoyant nature, she
allowed herself to hope that she had succeeded in inserting the thin
edge of the wedge; in 'making,' as she had expressed it to Francie, 'a
beginning towards more.'