Blanche: A Story for Girls

“I know all about everything,” said Sir Adam, sagely shaking his head. “You’re to have no secrets from me – none of you, do you hear? And if I suspect you, Stasy number one, or you, Miss Blanche, of concealing anything from me, I shall know where to go for all I want to hear;” and he patted little Stasy’s hand as he spoke. But his eyes had somehow wandered to Blanche. Why did she again change colour? She almost bit her lips with vexation as she felt conscious of it.

Soon after this, Sir Adam left them. He was staying at Alderwood, but was dining that evening at East Moddersham.

“Oh, have they come back?” exclaimed Blanche impulsively. “And how is – ” She stopped.

“Hebe Shetland, you’re thinking of?” he said quickly, for his instincts were keen. “I know all about it, as I fancy you do. Yes, she has come back too, only the day before yesterday.”

“And?” said Blanche eagerly.

“They are very hopeful,” he replied. “I don’t know that one dare say more as yet. I shall hear further particulars there to-night, and then I’ll tell you all about it. I shall see you again very shortly. I want to think over things. Good-bye, my dear children, for the present I haven’t seen the boy yet.”

As he reached the door, he turned round again.

“By-the-bye,” he said, “don’t mind my asking, have the Marths been civil to you? You were such near neighbours. Josephine is a peculiar woman, but there’s good in her.”

“There is in nearly every one, it seems to me,” answered Mrs Derwent with a smile. “Lady Marth had no special reasons for noticing us.”

“That means she was – ah well, the very reverse of what she might have been,” he said, with a touch of severity. “However – ”

“But Lady Hebe was all she could possibly be,” said Blanche quickly. “We felt drawn to her from the very first.”

“That’s right,” said Sir Adam, and with the words he was gone.

They were but a small party at East Moddersham at dinner that day. A few of Sir Adam’s particular friends, got together to welcome him back again, even if but for a short time, among them.

He drove over with Lady Harriot and her husband, to whom had not been confided the whole gravity of poor Hebe’s troubles. And the old lady chattered away rather aggravatingly as to reports which had reached her of Norman Milward’s fiancée having grown hypochondriacal and fanciful.

“The poor fellow’s been in Norway for ever so long,” she said, “because she wouldn’t agree to fixing the time for their marriage. Aunt Grace was with her about then, but even she couldn’t make her hear reason. It’s not what I’d have expected of Hebe, I must say.”

“Did Aunt Grace tell you so herself?” inquired Sir Adam drily.

“Well, no, not exactly,” Lady Harriot allowed. “It was something I heard in London about Hebe’s being so changed, and poor Norman looking so ill. It must have been true, for our Archie has been away with him all this time. I do hope he’ll be back soon, for he’s so useful in the autumn.”

“Norman Milward has come back,” said Sir Adam. “He was expected at East Moddersham to-day, so you will hear all about your nephew from him, and I can take upon myself to set your mind at rest as to any misunderstanding between Hebe and her fiancé!”

“I’m glad to hear it, I’m sure,” said Lady Harriot. “By-the-bye, Sir Adam,” she went on, “I think you might do your friends the Derwents a good turn by speaking of them to Josephine Marth. She’s almost the only person about here now who hasn’t taken them up.”

Sir Adam winced slightly at the expression.

“You have been very kind to them from the first, Lady Harriot,” he said. “I shall always feel grateful to you for it. But as to Lady Marth – no, I don’t care to bespeak her good offices, as she had not the sense or kind-heartedness to show them any civility before.”

Almost as he finished speaking, the carriage drew up at the hall door, and no more was said.

As they entered the drawing-room, Lady Harriot a little in advance of her husband and her guest, she gave a sudden cry of astonishment.

“Archie!” she exclaimed. “You here, my dear boy! and not with us at Alderwood! I didn’t even know you were back in England.”

“Nor did I myself, auntie, till I found myself in London yesterday morning,” the young man replied. “I came down here with Norman to-day, meaning to look you up to-morrow.”

“That’s right,” said Lady Harriot, but there was no time just then for further explanations, as Lady Marth came forward.

But it struck Sir Adam, as he shook hands cordially with the younger Mr Dunstan, that there was something forced in his tone and manner.

“Archie Dunstan’s spirits failing him would be something new,” thought the old man. “I must have my wits about me,” and a moment or two later he found an opportunity of saying a few words without risk of their being overheard.

“I’m particularly glad to meet you to-night, Dunstan,” he said. “I have never thanked you for looking up my old friends the Derwents again, and giving them my message. But for you, I should have felt even more ashamed of myself, for my carelessness towards them, than I do. I have been a selfish, self-absorbed old man, not worth calling a friend.”

“You have seen them, then,” said Archie eagerly.

“Yes, this afternoon. It has been almost more than I could stand to see them where and as they are, and to think how I might have saved it all I shall never forgive myself. Those two girls are perfectly charming, worthy to be their mother’s daughters.”

A new light seemed to come into Archies face, though he only murmured some half-inaudible words of agreement.

“At least,” he thought unselfishly, “this looks like an end of that hateful life for her, and once clear of that, who knows what opportunities might turn up? She would surely look on things differently.”

“And how is Hebe?” asked Sir Adam, still in a low voice.

“Better, really better,” replied Archie. “I saw her a few minutes ago, and she is hoping to see you after dinner. They will have to be awfully careful of her for some time; but still, Norman is ever so much happier.”

“Poor dear child!” said Sir Adam, and then he found himself told off to conduct his hostess to the dining-room.

He would have preferred another companion, for his feelings towards Lady Marth were not of the most cordial. They had some common ground, however, in the good hopes, now sanctioned, of Lady Hebe’s recovery; and in the interest of discussing these, the first part of the dinner passed more to Sir Adam’s satisfaction than he had anticipated.

Chapter Twenty Three

At East Moddersham

“It was all so touching,” said Lady Marth. “I cannot tell you how patient Hebe was, thinking of every one more than of herself. I don’t know any one else who would have behaved so beautifully through such a trial.”

And her somewhat hard though handsome features softened as she spoke, and her dark eyes looked almost as if there were tears in them.

Sir Adam, on his side, felt that he had perhaps been judging her too sharply.

“Of course,” he thought to himself, “but for their being friends of my own, I would never have known or cared whether she was kind to the Derwents or not. And I suppose one should try not to be personal; still – ”

At that moment a slight pause in the conversation at the other end of the table allowed Lady Harriot’s rather harsh, unmodulated voice to be heard very distinctly. She was speaking to a lady seated opposite to her, a visitor at East Moddersham, and not a resident in the neighbourhood.

“Yes,” she said, “you positively must get Lady Marth to drive you into Blissmore to see their things. I have been getting them all the custom I could, and I do think, now they have made a good start, they may get on well, poor things.”

“I’ll make a point of giving them an order,” the lady replied good-naturedly. “One does feel so sorry for them.”

Sir Adam was an old man, and a man of the world; but his face reddened perceptibly.

“Excuse me, Lady Harriot,” he said very clearly – and somehow every one stopped speaking to listen – “If you are alluding to Mrs Derwent and her daughters, I must not leave any misapprehension about them. There will soon be no need for any one to patronise them, however kind the motive. Their being in their present position has been the result of a complete misapprehension, for which, I must confess, I am myself to blame.”

Lady Harriot stared.

“My dear Sir Adam,” she said, “why didn’t you tell me so before?”

But Sir Adam had already turned to Lady Marth, and did not seem to hear the question. Lady Harriot nodded across the table confidentially.

“Never mind,” she said in a low voice. “Be sure you go to see their things, all the same.”

Lady Marth had looked up in astonishment at Sir Adam’s speech.

“Are you talking of some people who took a house on Pinnerton Green and have left it again already?” she said. “I had no idea they were friends of yours! I remember Hebe rather took up the daughters in connection with that guild of hers that she’s so enthusiastic about.”

Sir Adam’s face was grave and his tone very cold as he replied.

“You cannot possibly have met them,” he said, “or your discrimination would have shown you that, whether friends of mine or not, they are very different from what you have evidently imagined them.”

“Why, you seem quite vexed with me,” said Lady Marth, trying to carry it off lightly. “How can I be expected to know all about the good people on the Green, or to have guessed by instinct that the Derwents had anything to do with you?”

“Lady Hebe found out enough to make her show them all the kindness in her power,” he replied. “Lady Harriot called on them, poor dear soul, meaning to do her best, and Mrs Harrowby surely mentioned them to you?”

“Perhaps she did,” replied Lady Marth carelessly; “but the vicar’s wife, you know, Sir Adam, doesn’t count in that way. It’s her rôle, or she thinks it is, to ignore all class distinctions.”

“In this case there were none to ignore,” said Sir Adam, still more frigidly.

“I don’t say there were,” she replied. “Of course not with friends of yours. But how was I to know that? Now, you’re not to be vexed with me, for you’ve really no cause to be.” But as she said this, a certain afternoon in the vicarage drawing-room recurred to her memory – a beautiful, fair-haired girl, standing near her, a faint flush rising to her face as she – Lady Marth – drew herself back with words, to say the least, neither courteous nor amiable. Her tone to Sir Adam softened still more. “Of course,” she continued, “I shall be more than delighted to pay any attention in my power to Mrs Derwent – that is to say, if you wish it.”

“Thank you,” he answered, gratified, in spite of himself, by her evident sincerity. “I will tell you more about them some other time. I may see Hebe after dinner, may I not?” he went on. “Archie said something about her wishing it.”

“Oh yes,” replied Lady Marth. “She is counting upon it, I know. If you will follow us into the drawing-room a little before the other men, I will take you to her. She is really quite well in herself, but we daren’t risk any glare of light for her as yet. Isn’t it nice to see poor Norman looking so much happier?”

“Yes; of the two, I think he does more credit to their travels than young Dunstan,” Sir Adam replied thoughtlessly.

He regretted the remark as soon as he had made it, but a glance at Lady Marth’s face reassured him. She was in utter unconsciousness that Archie Dunstan and Blanche Derwent had ever met.

“Not that I have much ground for the idea, though,” he said to himself. “I wonder if Hebe can possibly enlighten me.”

They were approaching the end of dinner, and the rest of the conversation between himself and his hostess was on general subjects. But as she followed her guests to the drawing-room, she touched him gently on the arm.

“I shall expect you in a few minutes,” she said; and a quarter of an hour or so later, Sir Adam found himself following her up the first flight of the broad oak staircase, along a passage, the rooms of which, since her first coming there as a little child, had always been appropriated to Sir Conway’s ward.

“Poor dear child,” thought the old man to himself. “Things don’t seem so unequal, after all, in life. Stasy’s children have had more than Hebe, heiress though she is. She has never known what ‘home’ really is as they have done?”

But it was a very happy Hebe who rose from a low seat near the fireplace in her pretty boudoir, to greet him as he followed Lady Marth into the room.

“Now, I shall leave you alone,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heaps to say to each other.”

They had more to talk of even than the lady of the house suspected. For long after Hebe had replied to all her old friend’s inquiries about herself – the result of the operation, and the still necessary precautions to be observed – and had told him the happy hopes for the future she now dared to entertain, they still went on talking earnestly and eagerly.

“I think our marriage will be early in the spring,” Hebe had said, and the allusion seemed to send Sir Adam’s thoughts in a further direction.

“Hebe,” he said, “I want to speak to you about my friends the Derwents, whom I am delighted to find you’ve got to know on your own account.”

The girl’s face lighted up with the keenest interest. “I too want to talk about them to you,” she said. “I have just been wondering if I may speak to you quite openly.”

“Certainly you may do so – it is just what I have been hoping for,” replied Sir Adam, and the hands of the pretty clock on Hebe’s mantelpiece had very nearly made their accustomed journey of a full hour before it suddenly struck Sir Adam that he was scarcely behaving with courtesy to his hosts in spending so much of the evening away from the rest of the party.

Just then Norman Milward put his head in at the door.

“I’m most sorry to interrupt you,” he said. “But Lady Marth thinks that perhaps – ”

“Of course,” said Sir Adam, rising as he spoke; “I had no business to stay so long. – Then you’ll expect us to-morrow afternoon, my dear child? I will explain it to Lady Marth. – You’ll stay up here, I suppose, Milward?”

“Yes,” the young man replied; “I’ve scarcely seen her yet. It seems all too good to be true.”

Sir Adam glanced back at them as he left the room, standing together on the hearthrug, the firelight dancing on the two bright heads, on the two young faces so very full of happy gratitude.

“I scarcely feel like a childless old fogy, after all,” he thought, as he made his way down-stairs. “It seems to me I have a good many children. That little Stasy now – Blanche is charming, but Stasy is perfectly irresistible.”

About four o’clock the next afternoon the Alderwood brougham might have been seen on the road from Blissmore to East Moddersham. There were two people inside it – Blanche Derwent and Sir Adam. It was a cold day, for the autumn was now advancing rapidly.

“Dear me,” said Blanche, with a slight shiver, as she glanced out of the window at her side, “this road is beginning to look quite wintry. It is just about a year since mamma and Stasy and I drove along here for the first time, the day we came down to look at Pinnerton Lodge – only a year!”

Sir Adam stooped and drew the fur rug a little more closely round her.

“Blanche, my dear,” he said, “you are a sweet, good child, I know, but I’m very angry with you, nevertheless. You really might have helped me to make your mother see things more reasonably.”

“But if I don’t see them ‘reasonably’ myself?” said Blanche. “I can’t help quite agreeing with what mamma feels; and after all, Sir Adam, it is only a few months’ delay.”

“But a few months mean a good deal at my age,” he persisted. “Your mother promises to look upon me – for the years, certainly not many, that still remain to me – entirely as a father. Why should we put off acting upon this at once, for a scruple which, after all, need be of no importance?” Blanche hesitated.

“I can’t feel that,” she said. “To me it seems so much better, from every point of view, to carry out our plan for the time arranged. And you know, Sir Adam, it will not practically make much difference. You couldn’t risk all the winter in England, and mamma thinks it better not to interrupt Herty’s and Stasy’s lessons, though, of course, these are secondary reasons; the real one is our promise to Miss Halliday and – ”

“And what?”

“Perhaps it is selfish,” said Blanche. “But somehow it seems to me more dignified not to give up what we are doing, so hurriedly, as if – almost as if we were at all ashamed of it;” and she blushed a little.

“There’s something in that perhaps,” replied her old friend. “Perhaps in my heart I agree with you to some extent. But I am tired of wandering about by myself. I am longing to feel I have got a home again, and daughters to care about me in my last days.”

“Dear Sir Adam,” said Blanche, “you don’t know how I love to hear you speak like that! The winter will seem as bright as possible to us with the looking forward to going back to Pinnerton in the spring. You’re going to see our house to-day, aren’t you, while I am with Lady Hebe? You mustn’t be disappointed in its size. It isn’t at all large, you know, but those half-finished rooms mamma was telling you about can easily be made very nice.”

“Yes, I’m sure of it,” said Sir Adam. “I’ve no love for very big houses and the worries they entail. The Bracys are very good-natured, and will let us make plans beforehand, so as to lose no time. They turn out in May next year, don’t they? And by then your beloved Miss Halliday will have found an assistant to suit her – not as difficult a matter as a moneyed partner, which she will not now require. Then, as I was saying, I shall take a house in London for a short time, and all of you must join me there. We must give Stasy a pleasanter impression of London than she has, poor child. But here we are – ”

Blanche looked up with interest at the fine old house. It was the first time she had seen more of it than its gables and chimneys through the trees, even though for several months they had been within a stone’s-throw of the lodge gates.

“I will take you up at once to Hebe’s room,” said Sir Adam, “as she is expecting you;” and he led the way across the hall to the wide staircase.

“And how shall I meet you again?” said Blanche, who was not above a certain sensation of nervousness at the thought of encountering the formidable Lady Marth in her own house.

“It will be all right,” Sir Adam replied, laying his hand lightly on her shoulder as he spoke. “Hebe will look after you,” for he was quick enough to perceive her slight timidity, and liked her none the less for it. His kind tone reassured her, but had she known who was at that moment crossing the hall below them, it is very certain that Blanche’s habitual calm would have been still more seriously disturbed.

She forgot all about Lady Marth and everything else for the moment in the pleasure of seeing Hebe Shetland again – her “girl with the happy face,” chastened perhaps, somewhat paler and thinner than she remembered her, but sweeter still, and best of all, with the same bright sunny eyes, bearing no traces of the suffering they had gone through.

Hebe caught her by both hands and kissed her.

“Dear Blanche,” she said.

The words and gesture surprised Blanche a little, but pleased her still more; while to Hebe it was an immense gratification to feel that she and the girl she had instinctively chosen as a friend could now meet on equal ground, with no constraint.

“It is so good of you to come,” she said to Blanche.

“So good of Sir Adam to bring you” – But Sir Adam had already disappeared. “I have been looking forward so very much to seeing you again. I only wish you were at Pinnerton Lodge, and then you would come to see me often, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Blanche heartily, thinking to herself with satisfaction that, thanks to Sir Adam, there could no longer be any complication in the matter. “But we shall not be at Pinnerton for a good while – not till next summer; however, I will come to see you whenever I can, you may be quite sure.”

“I’m afraid I shan’t be allowed to go as far as Blissmore just yet,” said Hebe; “I have to guard against any chill. But I had quite hoped you were coming back to the Lodge soon, from what Sir Adam said last night.”

“Dear Sir Adam,” said Blanche. “I could never tell you how good he is to us! But still, things must stay as they are for a while.” And then she went on to explain to Hebe the position of affairs with regard to Miss Halliday, and how much they felt themselves indebted to her, adding simply: “At that time she really seemed our only friend.”

Hebe stroked Blanche’s hand.

“I quite understand how you feel,” she said, “and I have no doubt you are right. But Sir Adam was so full of it last night, he was sure he’d get your tenants to turn out at once, and – he’s such an old man now, Blanche – he can’t have many years to live. Don’t you think perhaps, for his sake, you should not be quite so scrupulous?”

“It may be possible to arrange things a little sooner,” said Blanche. “Of course his wishes will be almost our first thought now. But, you see, in any case he must not risk the winter in this climate.”

“I was forgetting that,” said Hebe regretfully. “He seems so much stronger lately.”

Then they went on to talk of other things, Hebe giving a few details of all she had gone through.

“I can bear to think of it now that it is all so happily over;” and in the interest of their conversation time passed rapidly.

Hebe started when the silvery sound of a gong reached them from the hall below.

“That’s the tea-gong,” she said. “I am allowed to go down to tea, for Josephine keeps the room in a half-light for me. I had no idea it was so late.”

The two girls went down the staircase together; the drawing-room door stood open, and a hum of voices reached their ears before they entered the room. Then Lady Marth’s clear, decided tones rang out conspicuously above the others.

“Nonsense!” she was saying. “You can both stay if you choose – you know you are always welcome.”

“That must be Norman,” said Hebe gladly, “and – ”

But Blanche heard no more, for by this time they were inside the room, and Lady Marth was addressing her.

“How do you do, Miss Derwent? My hands are full of teacups, you see. I persuaded Sir Adam to stay to tea.”

Some one came forward from the little group near the fire. It was almost too dark to distinguish faces at the first moment, but Hebe’s, “This is Norman, Blanche,” prepared her for his cordial greeting.

“Here’s a nice corner for you both,” said Mr Milward. “No foot-stools to stumble over!”

“I see better in the dark than the rest of you, I think,” said Hebe laughingly; “it is too bad for you all to suffer for my sake. – Oh,” she exclaimed, “is that you, Archie? I didn’t know you were coming back again to-day.”

“Norman brought me over,” Mr Dunstan replied.

“And he’s pretending he can’t stay to dinner,” put in Lady Marth. – “As if your aunt would mind, Archie!”

He did not at once reply. He was shaking hands with Blanche.

“How do you do, Miss Derwent?” he said easily. “I hope Mrs Derwent is well, and that famous little brother of yours?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Blanche, in a tone which she endeavoured to render unconstrained, though feeling for once nervous, and ill at ease and disgusted at herself for being so, especially as Mr Dunstan struck her as his airiest, most conventional self.

“I really can’t stay,” he went on, turning again to Lady Marth. “Auntie is counting upon me, as she has got a man too few, and some people are coming to dinner.”

“It’s only to take in Rosy,” said Norman, with a brother’s brutality.

“Only Rosy!” repeated Lady Marth. “My dear Norman, if Rosy were any one but your sister, I don’t think you would be quite so much at a loss to account for Archie’s obstinacy.”

Archie laughed a hearty unconstrained laugh. “Archie’s taste is not peculiar; every one loves a tête-à-tête with Rosy, when they have a chance of it,” said Hebe, with apparently uncalled-for warmth.

“Of course they do,” said Sir Adam, speaking for the first time. – “And now, my dear Blanche, if you’ve had a cup of tea, I think we must be off – I have to get back to Alderwood in time for dinner, too, Master Archie. By-the-bye, we’ve got the large brougham – will you come with us viâ Blissmore, though it is rather a round?”