"I beg your pardon," she exclaimed instinctively, and the stranger turning sharply--for she had been looking in the forward direction--almost at the same moment made the same apology, adding quickly, when she heard Jacinth"s English voice, "I should not be blocking up the"----But her sentence was never completed. "Oh, can it be you? Jacinth--Jacinth Mildmay? Is Frances here? Oh, how delightful.--Camilla," as an older girl came across the road in her direction, "Camilla, just fancy--this is Jacinth. I can scarcely believe it," and before Jacinth had had time to say a word, she felt two clinging arms thrown round her neck, and kisses pressed on her burning cheeks, by the sweet, loving lips of Bessie Harper.
The blood had rushed to Jacinth"s face in a torrent, and for a moment she almost gasped for breath.
"Bessie, Bessie dear, you are such a whirlwind. You have startled Miss Mildmay terribly."
"I am so sorry," said Bessie penitently, and then at last Jacinth was able to answer the girl"s inquiries, and explain how it had come about that she alone of her family was here so far from home.
"And are _you_ all here?" she asked in return.
"Yes," Miss Harper answered, "all of us except my eldest brother. The two others are here temporarily; the little one who is going into the navy got his Christmas holidays, and the other has his long leave just now. And my father is so wonderfully better; you heard, you saw Bessie"s letter to Frances?" and Camilla"s face grew rosy in its turn.
"Oh yes," Jacinth replied. "We were very, very glad. Frances wrote almost at once."
Bessie shook her head.
"I never got the letter," she said; "but we have missed several, I am afraid. We have been moving about so. Cannot you come to see us, Jacinth? Mother, and father too, would love to see you. We are living a little way out in the country at the village of St Remi; we have got a dear little house there. Camilla and I came in for shopping this morning. Couldn"t you come back with us to luncheon? We could bring you home this afternoon, and your maid would take back word to--to Lady Myrtle Goodacre."
"I am afraid I cannot," said Jacinth, with some constraint in her voice.
"I never go out anywhere without asking Lady Myrtle"s leave."
"Of course not," Camilla interposed. "It would not do at all. You must do as you think best, Miss Mildmay, about getting permission to come to see us. I beg you to believe that, if you think it better not to ask it," she spoke in a lowered tone, so as to be unheard by Clayton, "we shall neither blame you nor misunderstand you. And now, perhaps, we had best not keep you waiting longer."
She held out her hand with the same quiet friendliness as appeared in her words; not perhaps _quite_ without a touch of dignity almost approaching to _hauteur_ in the pose of her pretty head as she gave the unasked a.s.surance. Jacinth thanked her--what else could she do?--feeling curiously small. There was something refreshing in the parting hug which Bessie bestowed upon her, ere they separated to follow their respective roads, but Jacinth was very silent all the way home.
"Nice young ladies," remarked Clayton. "They are old friends of yours, Miss Jacinth, no doubt?"
"The younger one was at school with my sister and me," the girl replied, for Clayton"s position as a very old and valued servant removed all flavour of freedom or presumingness from her observations. "But I scarcely know the older one."
And for the rest of the way home she was unusually silent. Her mind was hard at work. Jacinth was pa.s.sing through a crisis. Should she tell Lady Myrtle of the Harpers being in the near neighbourhood, or should she not? There was no obligation upon her to do so; their name had not been alluded to, even if Clayton should mention to her mistress the meeting with the young ladies, nothing would be easier than for Jacinth to pa.s.s it off with some light remark. And with the temptation to act this negatively unfriendly part awoke again the sort of jealous irritation at the whole position, which she believed herself to have quite overcome.
"They perfectly haunt us," she said to herself: "why in the world should they have chosen Ba.s.se out of all the quant.i.ty of places there are? And to think"--this was a very ugly thought--"that but for mamma they wouldn"t have been able to come abroad at all! Why should they spoil my little happy time with Lady Myrtle? And very likely no good would come to them of my telling her that they are here. She would be sure to refuse to see them."
But what if it were so? Did that affect her own present duty?
"It might annoy Lady Myrtle," whispered an insidious voice; but had not Mrs Mildmay risked far more in her outspoken appeal, when still almost a stranger to her mother"s friend? Would not the concealment of so simple a circ.u.mstance as her meeting the Harper girls be more than negative unfriendliness? would it not savour of want of candour and selfish calculation, such as in after years Jacinth would blush to remember? And again there sounded in her ears the old north-country woman"s quaint words: "It do seem to me, ma"am, as there"s two kinds of honesty."
And Jacinth lifted her head and took her resolution.
That afternoon there was to be no drive, as the old lady had caught a slight cold. And after luncheon Jacinth came and sat beside her in her favourite position, a low stool beside Lady Myrtle"s chair, whence she could rest one elbow on her friend"s knee and look up into her kind old face with the strangely familiar dark eyes, which were dearer to Robin Redbreast"s owner than even the girl herself suspected.
"I want to talk to you, dear Lady Myrtle," she began. "I want to tell you whom I met this morning," and she related simply what had occurred.
The old lady started a little as Jacinth spoke the names "Camilla and Bessie Harper." But then she answered quietly: "It was right of you to tell me, dear," she said. "And you need not fear its annoying me. It is strange that they should have chosen Ba.s.se, but really it does not matter to us in the least. I am very glad the father is so much better.
Now let us talk of something else, dear."
Now came the hard bit of Jacinth"s task.
"Dear Lady Myrtle, that isn"t all; it"s only the first part of what I have to say," she began tremulously. "I want to tell you _everything_, more even than I told mamma, for till to-day I don"t think I saw it quite so plainly. I have not been as good and true as you have thought me; nothing like Frances, or mamma, of course. And I feel now that you must know the worst of me. I shall never be happy till you do, even though it is horrible to own how mean I have been."
Lady Myrtle sat silent, too bewildered at first to speak. What had come to Jacinth, so quiet and self-controlled as she usually was? But she held the girl"s hand and said gently, "Tell me anything that is on your mind, dear child, though I think--I cannot help thinking--that you are exaggerating whatever it is that you think you have done wrong."
Then out it all came: the confession that many would hardly have understood--would have called morbid and fanciful, perhaps. But Lady Myrtle"s perceptions were keen, her moral ideal very high, her sympathy great; and she did not make the mistake of crushing back the girl"s confidence by making light of the feelings and even actions which Jacinth"s own conscience told her had been wrong. One thing only she could not resist suggesting as a touch of comfort.
"I think, latterly at any rate, dear, you _were_ influenced by the fear of troubling me. You must allow that."
"Well, yes," Jacinth agreed. "But even then I should not have let even that make me uncandid and--and--almost plotting against them."
"No, no, dear; don"t say such things of yourself. And now you may put it quite out of your mind for ever. You have been only too severe on yourself. But try to understand one thing, dear; _no_ child could be to me what you are. Even--even if these young people had been in happy relations with me, as of course, but for past miseries, might have been the case, they would not have been _Jacinth_."
"No; I know it is for grandmother"s sake you care for me so much more than I deserve," said the girl, as she wiped away her tears, "and even in that way I should not have been jealous. I did not know it was jealousy. I have never realised before that I could be jealous. But I cannot put it quite off my mind till you let me feel I have done something to make up. Lady Myrtle, dear Lady Myrtle, _may_ I ask them to come to see you? I know they are longing to thank you. And oh, it would make me so happy!"
"I will think it over, my dear," was all Lady Myrtle would commit herself to. But even that was something.
CHAPTER XIX.
UNCLE MARMY"S GATES.
When people really and thoroughly want to do right, and do not content themselves by _saying_ they want to do so, I doubt if they are ever for long left in perplexity. Jacinth Mildmay had found it so. She had courageously dismissed all the specious arguments about "troubling Lady Myrtle," "not going out of her way to dictate to her elders," or "interfering in their affairs," and had simply and honestly done what her innermost conscience dictated. And now, as to how she was to act about and towards the Harpers, she was content to wait.
But Lady Myrtle did not keep her very long in suspense. She too had put aside every consideration but the one--what was her duty to the Harper family?--and she had found solid ground.
"My dear Jacinth," she said, the second morning after the unexpected meeting of the former school-fellows, "I have decided that it would be unkind and ungracious to keep Captain and Mrs Harper and their children at arm"s length, if--if it would be any satisfaction to them to see me, as they like to think I have been of help to them. So I intend to drive out to St Remi to call upon them."
Jacinth looked up with a bright smile.
"I am so glad, Lady Myrtle," she added impulsively; "I do think you are so very good."
The old lady shook her head sadly.
"My dear," she said, "the bitterest part of approaching the end of life is the realising how terribly, how overwhelmingly other than "good" one has been, and how little time remains in which to make amends. As regards one"s self the recognising this is salutary; the more one feels it, the more thankful one should be. But it is about others: it is terrible to think of the harm one has done, the good one has left undone. If I had been more patient--more pitiful--more ready to make allowance for their strange weakness of character--with--with my poor brothers"----
Her voice broke; the last words were almost inaudible: it was very wonderful for her to say so much. And a new ray of light seemed to flash on Jacinth"s path as she listened. If such a thing were possible, if it could come to pa.s.s that Lady Myrtle should reinstate her nephew and his family in their natural place in her affection and regard, what happiness, what softening of past sorrows might such a change not bring to the sorely tried heart of her old friend. And a rush of unselfish enthusiasm came over the young girl.
"Anything _I_ can do to further it, I shall do," she determined, and at that moment died away the last fast-withering remains of jealousy in her heart that the Harpers might in any way replace her in Lady Myrtle"s regard.
It seemed like an encouragement--an endors.e.m.e.nt of this secretly registered vow--when Lady Myrtle spoke again.
"Does it make you happy, dear child, to hear what I have resolved to do?
I hope so; for your feelings, your self-blame so honestly avowed, though I think you exaggerate the need of it, have helped to influence me. I know how bitter such self-blame may grow to be, and my darling Jacinth, I want to feel, when I come to die, that at least I have brought nothing but good into _your_ young life."
"Dear Lady Myrtle," said Jacinth, "what you tell me makes me happier than I can express; far, far happier than I have deserved to be."
They went the next day. Lady Myrtle"s cold was better, and for the season, the weather was wonderfully mild. Jacinth had hesitated about accompanying her old friend, but Lady Myrtle insisted upon her doing so.