'You would be so near me,' she said. 'Any or all of you could come down at any time. Robin Redbreast would be your country home.'
Colonel Mildmay smiled gently while he thanked her, and then he reminded her of the overwhelming difference of the two appointments as regarded the 'pay.'
'But that needn't—that would not signify,' Lady Myrtle began, though with evident difficulty in expressing herself, while Mrs Mildmay's heart beat faster as she realised that they were approaching 'the tug of war.' 'I—you must know—it is only natural;' and with other confused expressions about Jacinth being to her 'as her own child,' 'no one of her own kith or kin except the Elvedons,' whose affairs were long ago definitely arranged, and references to her unforgotten devotion to the Jacinth of her youth, the old lady plunged into the thick of things. She had not meant to speak so soon, she said; she had wished her intentions to be faits accomplis before she disclosed them, but all this had upset her and she must explain.
And then she told the whole, and Colonel and Mrs Mildmay, though a little prepared for some announcement of proposed benefit to Jacinth in the future, listened in appalled and almost stunned silence to Lady Myrtle Goodacre's eccentric and, in their eyes, extravagant determination.
Jacinth was to be her heir—all that she had to dispose of, and it was still a great deal, even without that portion of her wealth which, with the knowledge that the old lord would have approved of her doing so, she meant to restore to the title; even shorn of that and of some other property on the Goodacre side which she only liferented, Lady Myrtle was a rich old woman. And all she had to leave, short of legacies to certain hospitals and other benevolent institutions which she had interested herself in, all was to be Jacinth's. The only landed property was Robin Redbreast and the small farm belonging to it, but in money there would be more than enough to keep up three or four places of its size.
Mrs Mildmay's heart sank, as she listened, but so far neither she nor her husband had interrupted the speaker by word or movement. And she, gaining confidence by their silence, at last came to the final announcement.
'So you see, my dear friends, that looking upon Jacinth as I do, it is only consistent—consistent, and I may say necessary—that you consent to my at once arranging for a proper allowance, whatever you like to call it, being arranged for her. And this—of course you will agree with me, that this must be an amount sufficient not only for a thoroughly good education, but for her to be surrounded by everything right and fitting for the position she will be called upon to occupy, perhaps not so very long hence, for I am an old woman. And I do not want to teach or induce any selfishness or self-assertion; I have the very greatest respect for parental authority; I will tell her nothing, or only what you approve of her knowing. But you see how it affects the present position of things, and your present decision, my dear Colonel Mildmay.'
Colonel Mildmay moved uneasily in his chair, but still he did not speak.
'You must see,' Lady Myrtle proceeded, 'that it would be entirely inconsistent in these circumstances for you to bury yourself and Eugenia and the children in a dreadful place like Barmettle. You will, I feel satisfied, agree that in anticipating the future a little, as it were, and allowing me at once to—to place a certain income at your disposal—an income which I am sure Jacinth will continue when things are in her own hands—you are only acting reasonably and—justly, I may say, as well as in a manner really to earn my gratitude.'
The old lady's voice trembled ominously: this strange continued silence was beginning to rouse some apprehension. As she uttered the last word—'gratitude'—Mrs Mildmay, hitherto entirely quiescent till her husband thought well to speak, could no longer restrain herself. She leant forward and caught Lady Myrtle's hand in hers.