"It is indeed," said Mrs Mildmay. "It _is_ wonderful. The way that she seemed to start up just when--so soon after we had lost dear granny, and in a sense our home."
"It would have been lovely, of course, for you to come back to us anyway," said Frances, "but it wouldn"t have been _so_ lovely if we"d all been going to Aunt Alison"s. It"s _rather_ a poky place, you know, mamma, and in India I suppose the houses are all _enormous_. I can only remember like in a dream, about very big, very white rooms."
"The last house we"ve had was far from _enormous_," said her mother with a smile, "still it was very nice. I often wished you and Ja.s.sie could have been with us there."
"But--oh mamma, you"ll never go back again," pleaded Frances. "We"ve got dear papa"s coming to look forward to now, and after that--never mind _where_ we live, if only we stay together."
Mrs Mildmay smiled, though for the first time with a touch of sadness.
"Don"t let us spoil to-day by looking forward, dear; except, as you say, to your father"s coming. If he were here, everything _would_ seem perfect."
"And here"s Robin Redbreast," exclaimed Jacinth, as they turned the corner of the lane, "and "Uncle Marmy"s gates" wide open in your honour.
Generally we drive in at the side. Now, mamma, take a good look. First impressions are everything, you know. Isn"t _this_ perfect?"
She seemed full of enthusiasm, which her mother was glad to see and quick to respond to.
"It _is_ beautiful: I have never seen anything like it," she replied warmly. "And _could_ there have been a more exquisite day?"
"And mamma, mamma," cried Eugene, "you know, don"t you, it was all me that got friends with Lady Myrtle; me, with getting--_wursty_, that day, you know?"
CHAPTER XIV.
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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 Ja.s.sie 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 Ja.s.sie 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.surance 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 Ja.s.s 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 Ja.s.s 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.