CHAPTER XV.
LADY MYRTLE'S INTENTIONS.
And Francie, during those few days, was her mother's only confidante. Various reasons made Mrs Mildmay decide not as yet to come upon the subject with Jacinth. While still to all intents and purposes so much of a stranger to her daughter, she felt anxious to avoid all sore or fretted ground; all discussion which might lead her prematurely to judge or misjudge Jacinth. To Lady Myrtle, of course, she said nothing of this; but she suspected, as was indeed the case, that the old lady would feel no inclination to talk about the Harpers to her young companion. There were plenty of pleasanter things to talk about during the long drives on which, on most alternate afternoons, Jacinth accompanied their hostess; there were reminiscences of the past, always interesting to the girl, awakened to fresh vividness by Mrs Mildmay's own recollections of her mother and her own childhood; there were, more engrossing still, plans for the future, when 'papa' should return and be skilfully persuaded into renouncing India. And Lady Myrtle was nearly as great at castle-in-the-air building as Jacinth herself, and though too wise to discuss as yet with any one, especially with a girl who was really, notwithstanding her precocity, little more than a child, her still immatured intentions, Jacinth was far too acute, and Lady Myrtle too open and affectionate, for her young favourite not to be well aware how much her own future occupied and interested the old lady. Yet Jacinth was scarcely selfish in the common sense. She was capable, on the contrary, of great self-sacrifice for those she loved; her happy visions for days to come were by no means confined to, even though they might to a great extent revolve around, Jacinth Mildmay.
As seems often to happen when a looked-for letter, or reply to a letter, is of any peculiar importance, there was some delay in the acknowledgment of Lady Myrtle's communication by Mrs Harper. The old lady herself took it calmly enough. 'It should, as a business letter, have been replied to at once, but perhaps they are not business-like people, and are thinking it over,' was all she said.
Mrs Mildmay, on the contrary, and, so far as she understood it all, Frances, felt uneasy and perplexed. Mrs Mildmay was sorry for the Harpers to lay themselves open to the slightest appearance of disrespect or unpunctuality, and at the same time she had attacks of fear that Lady Myrtle's letter had hurt and wounded her relatives so deeply that they had decided to ignore it. Only, in that case, they would have returned the cheque.
'It is very absurd,' she said one evening to Frances. 'I don't generally "worry" about things at all, and I am quite sure I have never worried about any matter of our own as much. Except, perhaps, that time you all had scarlet fever at Stannesley, and somehow Marmy's letter missed the mail, and we were out of reach of telegraphing. Oh dear, I shall never forget that week!'
'Dear mamma,' said Francie, 'I quite know how you feel. I was so fidgety that time I sent on Camilla Harper's letter to you, though it wasn't anything like as important.'
But the very next morning the mystery was explained, and quite simply.