Blanche: A Story for Girls

“I know,” said Blanche with interest, and not sorry to divert the quarrel, which she saw impending between the two – “I know who it was. It must have been the girl with the happy face – Lady Hebe. That was what Herty was trying to describe. You might say ‘sunshiny,’ instead of ‘shiny,’ Herty.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant,” he said. “Her face smiled all over.”

“And did you say we did like Pinnerton?” inquired Stasy with some eagerness.

“I said I did, except when I’d too many lessons; and I said Blanchie did, but Stasy said it was very dull.”

Stasy looked uncertain whether to be pleased or vexed.

“What did she say?” she asked.

“She said it wasn’t so bright here as in France, and she’d been there all this time since Christmas, and then she nodded and trotted away,” was Herty’s reply.

“I thought she must be away,” said Blanche.

“Why – because she has not called upon us?” said Stasy, with what was meant for extreme irony.

“No,” said Blanche quietly. “She could not call unless her friends did, of course, and I don’t think the Marths are old acquaintances of mamma’s. But I had a feeling that she was away. We should have met her, riding or walking about.”

“I don’t suppose she ever walks,” said Stasy.

“Nonsense, Stasy! English girls are not like that. And don’t you remember Mrs Harrowby, the vicar’s wife, saying the other day that some of the girls in the neighbourhood were very good about the poor people, but that, unluckily, the most influential were seldom here. It was when she was telling us about the classes she wants to get up for some of the older girls.”

“No,” said Stasy, “I didn’t pay attention. I suppose I thought she was speaking of the Miss Wandles and the Miss Beltons, and all the other Miss Somebodies or Nobodies. I don’t care about poor people: it’s not my line – excepting making a quête. I used to like doing that when I was a little girl.”

Blanche said nothing. She had considerable experience of Stasy’s contrariness.

But a certain pleasurable though vague sense of anticipation had made its way into her mind since hearing of Herty’s meeting with Lady Hebe.

“I do feel so sure she is good and unselfish and thoughtful for others,” she said to herself. “She may not have much in her power, but I feel as if she would like to be kind to us. I don’t care so much for myself, of course, though it would be nice to know her; but it is for Stasy. I am so afraid of the friends she may make if she has not nice ones.”

And Blanche’s face looked anxious and perturbed as they re-entered their own little domain, laden with their pretty spoils.

Two things happened in the course of the next few days, which somewhat broke the monotony of the Derwents’ daily life. The first was a drive to Alderwood, to return Lady Harriot’s call. Blanche impressed upon her mother that whether the visit was expected of them or not, it was due to their own dignity to make it, notwithstanding the unfavourable impression that Mrs Lilford’s tenant had left with them.

“If we don’t call, she will think us fair game for patronising and condescending to. Of course we must, and we should have done so before.”

“I have kept hoping to hear again from Sir Adam or Mrs Lilford,” said Mrs Derwent. “I should much have preferred not to meet Lady Harriot till she understood better about us.”

“She will probably ring the bell and tell the housekeeper to show us the pictures,” said Stasy. “You, not ‘us,’ I should say, for, of course, I needn’t go.”

“You can go with us for the drive and wait in the fly outside,” said Blanche.

For though they had been talking of a pony-carriage “in the spring,” they had not yet heard of a suitable steed; and on the whole, perhaps Mrs Derwent was not sorry to defer for a little any avoidable expense, the installation at Pinnerton Lodge having cost, as is always the case in such matters, much more than she had anticipated.

Stasy received her sister’s proposal with a laugh. “All right,” she said. “Anything for a spree. I’ll come.”

Something in her tone slightly grated on Blanche.

“Stasy,” she said, “I do hope even the little you see of those girls at Mrs Maxton’s is not doing you any harm. You – you seem to be catching up their expressions.”

“What b – nonsense!” said Stasy, quickly substituting the second word, though she could not help reddening a little. “Mamma, you know better than Blanche. Is there anything unladylike in ‘all right,’ or ‘a spree?’”

“I can scarcely say, my dear,” said her mother. “But I know what your sister means. It is the tone we – ”

Stasy ran across the room and stopped her mother saying more, by a kiss.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’m not going to get vulgar and horrid. And some of those girls are really quite nice, mamma. I’ll tell you what – I wish you’d let me invite one or two here one afternoon to tea. Oh, might I? It would be so nice. I’d like them to see you and Blanchie, and then you can judge for yourselves if the ones I bring aren’t quite ladylike. It is so dull sometimes, mamma. Do say I may.”

“I will think about it, dear,” said Mrs Derwent. “It is not that I have any prejudice against the girls. I daresay there are among them truly refined and charming natures, but I do not want to open a visiting acquaintance in Blissmore. I did not bring you to live in England to fall into a lower social position than is naturally ours. It was not for that we left our dear old home at Bordeaux.”

There was a slight catch in the mother’s voice as she said the last words, that made both her daughters look at her anxiously.

“Mamma dear,” whispered Stasy, “do you sometimes wish we hadn’t left it?”

“I can’t say, dear. I did it for the best, and we must be patient still,” she replied.

But when the sisters were alone, Stasy confided to Blanche that she thought “mamma” just a trifle prejudiced and narrow-minded.

“Si on n’a pas ce qu’on aime,” she said in her half-laughing, half-grumbling way, “il faut aimer ce qu’on a. If we can’t have grand friends, much better content ourselves with common ones. We are not put into the world to live alone: anything is better than dullness.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said Blanche.

The next day they went to call at Alderwood.

It was a real spring afternoon, and though the air had still a touch of keenness in it, it was full of the exhilaration which is the essential charm of the childhood of Nature’s year. In spite of some anticipatory shivers, Stasy persuaded her mother and Blanche to have the carriage open, filling it with shawls and rugs, “in case they should be cold,” though as regarded herself, she felt sure that would be impossible.

The first part of the road was familiar to them, as they had to go some considerable part of the way to Blissmore before reaching the cross-country route to Alderwood, which lay on the other side of the town. But once they had turned in the Alderwood direction, a lovely view was before them, and the girls burst into expressions of pleasure; while to their mother, every cottage, every milestone almost, recalled her happy youth.

“I am so glad to find I remember it all so well,” she said. “It makes me feel more at home than I have done yet. Is it not really a charming country? I wish we could have found a house near Alderwood.”

“I don’t,” whispered Stasy, with a private grimace for Blanche’s benefit.

When they reached the lodge gates and were driving slowly up the avenue, Mrs Derwent became perfectly silent, and her daughters respected her mingled feelings. For Alderwood in the old days, as they knew, had been almost as much “home” to her as the pretty Fotherley vicarage.

The anticipation of an interview with Lady Harriot Dunstan was a safe tonic against emotion or overmuch sentiment. And on the servant’s reply that her ladyship was at home, it was with a perfectly calm and dignified demeanour that Mrs Derwent, followed by Blanche, got out of the fly and made her way up the stone steps and across the tiled hall to the inner vestibule, whence opened the drawing-rooms and morning-room, all of which she knew so well. She felt as if in a dream: every footfall seemed to carry her back a quarter of a century. But for a glance at the grave face of the fair, beautiful girl beside her, she could have fancied all the events of the intervening years to have been imaginary, and herself again “Stasy Fenning,” running in with some message from “papa” to her kindly godfather!

Chapter Nine

Afternoon Meetings

When the door was thrown open, and the butler’s sonorous tones announcing Mrs and Miss Derwent made the occupants of the room turn round, and the short, stout figure of their hostess came waddling towards all illusion was dispelled, and with a little sigh Blanche’s mother came back to the very different present.

Lady Harriot, whose manners, as I have indicated, were not exactly “grande dame,” looked, and honestly was, a little perplexed.

“How de do?” she said, with as much civility as she was in the habit of showing to any but her immediate cronies, and turning to Blanche, “How de do?”

Blanche happened at the moment to be standing in the full light, and as she looked down in calm response to the little woman’s greeting, even obtuse Lady Harriot was struck by her incontestable beauty.