Blanche: A Story for Girls

“That man knows how to behave like a gentleman,” she said. “Who is he, Blanchie? Have you seen him before?”

“Yes,” said Blanche; “he was at Alderwood the afternoon mamma and I called there. I thought he was quite a boy – he looks very young – but I’m not sure about it now. Something in his way of speaking and his manner altogether make me think that perhaps he is older than he looks.”

Stasy listened with interest.

“I like him,” she said decidedly, and for the moment Blanche forgot the expression on her sister’s face which had made her hasten the leave-taking.

“What was the matter, Stasy?” she asked, when it recurred to her. “Why did you look so vexed and uncomfortable?”

“Uncomfortable!” repeated Stasy. “Oh dear, no. I am not afraid of any of those people. They couldn’t make me uncomfortable. I was only angry – very angry. What do you think Mrs Harrowby said?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Blanche. “When I looked across at you, I thought you were getting on so well. Lady Hebe said that that was Miss Milward whom you were talking to, and that she is so nice.”

“The plain girl – indeed, she is almost ugly – with the beautiful eyes,” said Stasy eagerly; “yes, she was awfully nice. But Mrs Harrowby spoilt it all. Just when everybody was standing up to go, she came bustling forward – ”

“She doesn’t bustle,” interposed Blanche.

“Well, never mind – up she came, and began talking to those Wandle girls and me in a patronising sort of way: ‘Your roads lie in the same direction; you will be going home together, I suppose?’ I stared, and to do them justice, they looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘I think you do not know me. I came with my sister, Miss Derwent. I have not the – ’ Then she interrupted me. ‘You don’t mean to say you have not made friends yet? and such near neighbours!’ And she was on the point, the very point, Blanche, of insisting on our ‘making friends,’ as she called it, when Lady Hebe came up about some books or something, and I managed to get out of the way. That was why I was fidgeting so to get hold of you. Blanchie, I won’t be treated like that. I wish we had never gone to that horrid tea-meeting.”

Blanche looked distressed.

“And yet, Stasy,” she said, “you were the one to want to make friends out of school, so to say, with some of the Blissmore girls – the very same class as those here, some of them actually relations.”

“Not all of the same class,” said Stasy; “some of them are much more ladies, only poor. And, besides, that would have been quite different, don’t you see, Blanchie? It would have been me, or us, being kind to them – not us being put on a level with them, as that Mrs Harrowby wanted to do. But I don’t think she will try that sort of thing again, with me, at least.”

“How did the girls take what you said?” her sister inquired quietly.

Stasy seemed a little uncomfortable.

“Oh well, you know, it wasn’t pleasant for them either. The dark one – she’s much cleverer and quicker than the pretty, stupid, fair one – the dark one looked very grave, and I think she got a very little red.”

“Poor girl!” said Blanche – and something in her tone made Stasy wince – “I daresay she did. They did not deserve to be punished, that I can see.”

“I never said they did, unless – well, if they are to be counted the same as us, they should have tried to be kind and ‘neighbourly.’ How I do detest that word! It is so inconsistent. You seem to think I should have been gushing over with amiability to them, just because they have not even been honestly, vulgarly kind. Not that we wanted anything of the sort, of course. We are completely and entirely independent of them.”

“Yes; and for that very reason you could well have afforded to be simply courteous. You may be pretty sure that if they have not called, it has been that they thought we should not like it; and I don’t say that we are in any way bound to make friends with people whose interests are quite different from ours, and who would have very little in common with us. But it could have done no sort of harm to have spoken pleasantly to them, and even to have walked home together, that I can see.”

Stasy did not reply. She was beginning to feel rather ashamed of herself. Had she behaved “snobbishly?” Her cheeks burned at the thought of having appeared to do so: I fear her first misgiving dealt more with this possible “appearing,” than with the actual wrong or contemptibleness of her feelings. Blanche walked on silently. She was thinking to herself how the same spirit came out in different positions. There was Stasy, now, sixteen-years-old Stasy, showing already the same worldly narrow-mindedness, which, had not Blanche’s own dignity and self-respect been of exceptional quality, might have mortified her not a little when shown to herself by Lady Marth.

“I would not tell Stasy of it at present, on any account,” she thought; “but some day I shall let her know how curiously the two incidents came together, and let her draw her own deductions.”

But she was sorry for Stasy too. She was at all times very tender of her sister’s faults and follies, and intensely sympathising in her troubles. So she exerted herself to disperse the little cloud of mortification which had gathered on Stasy’s face; and when the two entered the library, where their mother was waiting for them, they were both bright and cheerful, and ready to relate to her all the incidents of the afternoon which were likely to interest her.

“Lady Marth was there, you say?” she inquired. “I did not know she was likely to belong to the girls’ guild, or whatever you call it. I don’t know that I should have cared to let you go had I thought she would be there.”

Blanche looked rather surprised.

“Why, mamma, what does it matter? Do you mean because she has not called?”

“Not exactly. But she is the sort of woman who, unless she takes it into her head to be civil to people, can be – very much the reverse. And” – Mrs Derwent’s face hardened a little – “I don’t want you and Stasy, my darlings, to be exposed to that kind of thing. Aunt Grace hinted at something of the kind, and since then I have remembered who Lady Marth is. She belongs to a family of no ancestry, but which has become rapidly prominent through a mixture of cleverness and good luck. They – her people, the Banfleets – are now enormously rich, and pride themselves on their extreme exclusiveness. They are plus royalistes que le roi.”

“How detestable!” said Stasy, “and how contemptible! I am sure I don’t want to know them.”

“You can’t call them really contemptible,” said her mother. “They are a very talented family, in several directions too. And they are very generous and liberal and honourable. But this one weakness – the trying to be just the one thing they are not – spoils them.”

“And, very likely, if they were of very old descent, they would care less about it,” said Blanche reflectively.

“Perhaps so, but that does not always follow. Sir Conway Marth is a much wider-minded man, but not specially clever. And he is of a very old family. I used to know his sisters. They were thoroughly nice; more like that girl you have taken such a fancy to – his ward, I mean,” said Mrs Derwent. “But we cannot expect to know her in an ordinary way if she lives with the Marths. I wish – ” And then she hesitated, while a troubled look crept over her face.

Blanche, who was sitting next her, took her hand and fondled it softly.

“I know what you are going to say, mother dear,” she said, “and you are not to say it. Everything you have done has been for the best, and with the best motives, and you are just not to wish it undone. We have a mass of things to be grateful for and happy about, and why should we worry about things that, through no fault of ours, don’t come in our way.”

“Some of them may come in our way,” said Stasy, whoso versatile spirits had already gone up again. “I shouldn’t wonder if that nice, ugly Miss Milward were to call on us, and ask us to go to see her. – Oh Blanchie, there’s Flopper rushing about over the flower-beds; he really must be tied up, till he sobers down a little.”

“Run out and tie him up, then,” said Blanche, and off Stasy set. Flopper was a new acquisition; a very interesting and aggravating retriever puppy, with all the charms and foibles of puppyhood intensely developed in him. Looking after Flopper was very wholesome for Stasy, her sister had discovered.

Blanche turned again to her mother.

“Mamma dear,” she said, “I really think we must not get into the way of seeing the worst side of things. If we are a little lonely, any way we have each other, and such a charming home. Could any one picture to themselves a sweeter room than this library? How our French friends would admire it!”

“Yes,” said Mrs Derwent, “it is a delightful room. Of course, the name is rather inappropriate, we have so few books.”

“We must get some more,” said Blanche; “by degrees, of course.”

“I fear it must be by degrees,” said her mother; “I cannot afford anything for the house at present, it has cost so much more than I expected. And there seems some little difficulty about our income still; the new partners are asking for longer time to pay us out in, and it will make it difficult to get good investments if the capital is realised so irregularly.”

“I don’t understand about it,” said Blanche. “But it doesn’t matter for the present. When Stasy is grown up, it would be nice to take her about a little; perhaps to London now and then, if by that time we have made some friends there. Mamma, couldn’t we invite some of our old friends to come to stay with us a little – Madame de Caillemont, for instance?”

“She is too frail now, I fear, to come so far,” said Mrs Derwent. “And as for any one else – no, I don’t feel as if I should like it. Do not think me small or childish, Blanchie, but – you know French peoples ideas? They are all already expecting, from one day to another, to hear of your making some grand marriage; they thought a good deal of us as well-connected English people, you know. And, I confess, it would mortify me for them, any of them, to see how – how completely ‘out of it all’ we are.”

“Poor little mother!” said Blanche caressingly, “you really mustn’t get gloomy. You don’t think I want to marry and leave you, do you? I can’t imagine such a thing. I cannot in my wildest dreams picture to myself the going away from you and Stasy! Never mind about that; but I do understand that you would feel rather sore at any friends thinking we were more friendless here than in France. There is no need to invite any one at present. I think I had a vague idea that it might cheer you up a little. This house is so pretty; I should enjoy showing it off.”

“I should like you to have the pleasure of doing so,” said Mrs Derwent wistfully. “You are always so sweet, my Blanchie. I can’t help feeling as if nothing and nobody would be good enough for you; the faintest idea of any one in the very least looking down upon you is – ”

“Mother dear, it is not that. These people don’t know us, or anything about us. There is nothing mortifying or worth minding that I can see in people’s ignoring you, when they know nothing about you. And as for rudeness – that always lowers the rude person, not the object of it.”

Mrs Derwent looked up quickly.

“You don’t mean that any one has been actually rude to you, Blanchie? Was there anything this afternoon?”

Blanche hesitated. She was incapable of uttering a word that was not true; yet, again, she was determined to tell her mother nothing of Lady Marth’s impertinence.

“Mamma,” she said, “I am thinking a great deal about Stasy. She was rude, at least it was tacitly rude, this afternoon,” and she related the incident we know of.

“It was unladylike and unkind,” said Mrs Derwent. “Yes, I am anxious about Stasy. This uncertain position that we have got into is bad for her in every way.”

“It may all come right,” said Blanche cheerfully. “But I am glad you think I spoke properly to Stasy. Let us hope it will all come right, mamma, if we do our best to be kind and good.”

Chapter Twelve

A Sprained Ankle

For a time it seemed as if Blanche’s hopeful prognostications were likely to be fulfilled. The meeting with Lady Hebe at the vicarage led to one or two others, for though Blanche was naturally quick and orderly, it took longer than either she or her new friend had expected to initiate her into work of which the whole idea and details were completely new to her. And the more the two girls saw of each other, the stronger grew the mutual attraction of which both had been conscious since that first evening when they came together in the fog at Victoria Station.

But Hebe was powerless to do more. She found it best to avoid all mention even of the Derwents’ name at East Moddersham, so evident was it that Lady Marth had conceived one of her most unreasonable prejudices against the strangers.

“It is a good deal thanks to Archie Dunstan,” thought Hebe. “He made Josephine furious that day. It’s really too bad of him, and if I can, I’ll give him a hint about it. Of course, it doesn’t matter to him whether people are nice to the poor Derwents or not, but he’s quite worldly wise enough to know that with a woman like Josephine, and, indeed, with all these good ladies here about, his advocacy would do them far more harm than good. Why, I’ve known Josephine jealous and angry when he or Norman refused to give up an engagement of long standing, if she chose to want them. She doesn’t think Archie should know any one whom she hasn’t taken up.”

She did speak to Archie, and he listened attentively. But at the close of her oration, when his silence was encouraging her to hope that she had made some impression, he entirely discomposed her by inquiring calmly if there were to be any more guild meetings at the vicarage before she went to town, as if so, he would make a point of looking in as he had done the week before.

“How can you, Archie?” said Hebe. “The very thing I have been trying. No,” she broke off, “there are to be no more meetings, and if there were, I would not let you know.”

“All right,” said Archie; “it doesn’t matter in the least. I’ve little birds in my service who are much more reliable sources of information than your wise ladyship. And one of them has informed me that there is going to be a tea-fight in the garden at Pinnerton Lodge for the damsels who have the honour to belong to the guild. And I mean to be at it.”

“Archie?” exclaimed Hebe, stopping short, and looking at him in a sort of despair. “You go too far sometimes in your love of fun and amusing yourself; you do, really. The Derwents are not people to take freedoms with. Just because Blanche – Miss Derwent, I mean – is so charming and lovely, and unlike the common run of girls, you’re much mistaken if you think that you can treat her with less deference than if she – ”

“If she what?” said Archie.

“Than if she – well – belonged to our set, you know. Was quite in everything.”

“How do you know that I’ve not fallen desperately, in love with her?” he inquired coolly, looking Hebe full in the face.

“For two reasons,” she replied. “You don’t know what really falling in love means; and secondly, if such a thing had happened, you wouldn’t talk about it like that.”

Archie laughed.

“All the same,” he said, “I am going to be at the Pinnerton Lodge tea-fight. See if I’m not.”

Hebe turned away in indignation. She was fond of Archie, and they were very old friends, almost on brother-and-sister-like terms, but he sometimes made her more nearly angry than was at all usual with her.

“How glad I am Norman is not like that!” she said to herself – “turning everything into joke. I wonder if it would be any good to make him speak to Archie, and warn him not to begin any nonsense about Blanche Derwent? No, I am afraid it might lead to disagreeables; Norman would be so vexed with Archie for annoying me.”

It was quite true that there was going to be an entertainment for the members of the guild at Pinnerton Lodge. The idea had been started in one of the talks on the affairs of the little society between Lady Hebe and Blanche, and Mrs Derwent had taken it up with the greatest cordiality. She was glad of anything which promised some variety for her daughters, and delighted to be the means of giving pleasure to others. Nor was she sorry to, as it were, assert her position in even so simple a way as this.

“I shall be so glad to see your Lady Hebe at last,” she said to Blanche.

“I am sure you will like her as much as I do,” said Blanche. “Stasy has promised me,” she went on, “to be very nice indeed to those other girls, to make up for that day at the vicarage.”

A few days later the little entertainment came off. It was almost the eve of the East Moddersham family’s leaving for London. Hebe had been staying at Crossburn for a few days, only returning home the morning of the party, on purpose to be present at it. Rosy Milward accompanied her, in order, as she said, to see how things went off, as she had promised an entertainment of the same kind herself to Hebe’s girls a little later in the season.

Rosy was a little shy of offering herself as a guest to the Derwents, for she had not succeeded in her endeavours to persuade her grandmother to call at Pinnerton Lodge. Old Mrs Milward was becoming increasingly frail, and even a small effort seemed painful to her. Yet, as is often the case with elderly people in such circumstances, she stood increasingly on her dignity, and would not hear of her grand-daughter “calling for her,” as Rosy ventured to suggest.

“We know nothing of these people,” she said, “except that Grace Selwyn knew the mother as a child. But no one else is calling on them, and I really don’t see why we need do so.”

“Lady Harriot has called,” said Rosy.

“I can’t help that, my dear,” was the reply. “Lady Harriot has no young daughters or grand-daughters, so her calling involves nothing.”

“She has a nephew,” Rosy said to herself, for she was far too quick not to have noticed Archie Dunstan’s evident admiration of Miss Derwent. But she had the discretion to keep this reflection to herself.

And, after all, Mrs Milward made no objection to her grand-daughter’s accompanying Lady Hebe to Pinnerton Lodge on the afternoon in question.

“That sort of thing,” she remarked, with some inconsistency, “is quite different. You can go anywhere for a fancy fair or a charity entertainment;” forgetting that her grand-daughter was sure to be specially thrown into the society of the Derwent girls on such an occasion, and little suspecting that Rosy intended to profit to the utmost by such an opportunity of seeing more of both Blanche and Stasy. For Hebe quite reassured her as to the welcome she would receive.

“They’re so thoroughly nice, so simply well-bred,” Hebe said, “so pleased to give pleasure. Otherwise, I should have felt almost ashamed to go myself, for it is much more marked for Josephine not to call, than your grandmother – an old lady, and living at some distance.”

All went well. The weather was mild, almost warm; there were no threatening rain-clouds or clouds of any kind on the afternoon fixed upon; so, to Stasy’s great delight, it was decided that the tea-tables should be set out in the garden, or rather on the tennis-lawn at one side of the house. Lady Hebe and her friend were the first to arrive, and were full of admiration of the way in which the Derwents had arranged their preparations.

“How pretty you have made the tables look!” said Hebe to Mrs Derwent. “It’ll be quite a lesson in itself to the girls. I’m afraid our part of the country is very deficient in taste. We are so dreadfully old-fashioned and conservative.”

“But many old-fashioned ways and things are in much better taste than new-fashioned ones,” Mrs Derwent replied. “Good taste seems to come in cycles. I must say there was great room for improvement in such things when I was a girl.”

“You lived near here then, did you not?” said Hebe. “Yes, at Fotherley, near Alderwood, you know,” said Mrs Derwent. “I was so happy there, that it made me choose this part of England in preference to any other, when the time came for us to make our home here.”

She sighed a little.

“It is a very nice part of the world, I do think,” said Hebe. “But I suppose it takes a little time to get to feel at home anywhere. And it must seem very strange to you to come back to the same place after so many years.”

“It hardly seems like the same place,” said Mrs Derwent, “but that would not matter, if Blanche and Stasy get to feel at home here.”

“I do hope they will,” said Hebe, with such evidently sincere earnestness, that Mrs Derwent’s heart was won on the spot. “If only I had anything in my power” – then she hesitated, and her colour deepened a little – “I may have before long,” she added with a smile. “I mean to say,” she went on, with some slight confusion, “if Miss Derwent cares to have me as a friend, I look forward to being rather more my own mistress than I am just now.”

“You are very good,” said Mrs Derwent simply; but at that moment Stasy came dancing over the grass, to say that the guests of the day, “the guild girls,” had begun to arrive, and Lady Hebe was in request to organise the games.

“Where is Herty?” said Mrs Derwent suddenly. “I haven’t seen him for ever so long!”

“He went off to the wood, to get some more ivy, just after luncheon,” said Blanche. “Yes, he should have been back by now. But you needn’t be uneasy about him, mamma; he’s sure to be all right.”

“Still, I wish he would come back,” said Mrs Derwent. “He was looking forward to the fun of helping us with the tea and everything.”

The next hour passed very busily – so busily, that, except Mrs Derwent herself, no one gave a thought to Herty’s continued absence, and even she forgot it from time to time. But when the games had ceased for the moment, and everybody was no less busily but more quietly occupied at the tea-tables, the thought of Herty returned to Blanche’s mind, as well as to her mother’s.

“What can he be about?” she said to herself. “I don’t want to frighten mamma, but I really think we must send some one to look for him.”

She glanced round, and, thinking she would not be missed for a moment, she hastened across the lawn towards a side gate, whence they generally made their way into the woods by a short cut. There she stood listening, hoping to hear the little boys whistle, or the sound of his footsteps hurrying over the dry ground. But all was silent, save that now and then there came the distant clatter of teacups mingled with cheerful voices, and now and then a merry laugh.

“They won’t hear me,” thought Blanche, “if I call. And possibly Herty may, if he’s still in the woods.”

So she called clearly, and as loudly as she could: “Herty, Herty! where are you? Her-ty, Her-ty!” No reply.

Blanche waited a moment or two, and then tried again. This time she thought she heard something like a far-off whistle. It was a peculiarly still afternoon, and sound carried far. Soon, to her listening ears, came the consciousness of approaching steps, firm and decided, not the light footfall of a child like Herty. Blanche still lingered.

“It may be some one coming through the wood, who has seen him,” she thought; “at least I can ask.” Another moment, and the new-comer was in sight. But – Blanche had good eyesight – but for some seconds the figure approaching her set her perception at defiance. What, who was it? An old man with humped-up shoulders? A woodcutter carrying a load? No, it was not an old man – it moved too vigorously; nor was it a peasant – the step was too easy and well-balanced. And the load on its shoulders – a moment or two more, and it all took shape. The stranger was a young man, and – yes, undoubtedly, a gentleman, and he was carrying a child!

Then Blanche’s heart leaped into her mouth, as the saying goes, with horror. The child was a little boy, and – yes, it was Herty. What, oh! what had happened to him?

She gave no thought to the person who was carrying him; she was over the stile by the gate in half a second, and rushing in frantic haste along the path, towards her little brother and his bearer.

“Herty, darling!” she exclaimed. “What is the matter? Have you hurt yourself?” And then, as the child did not at once reply – “Has he fainted?” she went on. “Oh, do speak!”