Part 36 (1/2)

'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 refres.h.i.+ng 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.