Blanche: A Story for Girls

Blanche coloured a little.

“You think me better than I am,” she said. “I should enjoy – things – too, but if one can’t have them? But I think I should mind for Stasy more than for myself. She is naturally more dependent on outside life than I. She does feel it very dull and lonely here, and I wish she had some companions.” Hebe looked and felt full of sympathy.

“I hope your life here will brighten by degrees,” she said. “Don’t you think your sister would do something to help us, too? She seems so clever.”

“Yes, she is very quick, and she can be very amusing,” said Blanche. “We should both be glad to do anything we can. But have you not a good many helpers already? And those other ladies – the residents here —they don’t go away. Could not they take charge in your absence much better than a stranger like me?”

She glanced across the room to where Miss Adela Bracy, a small, capable-looking, dark girl, was at the moment saying something in a low voice to the rosebud-faced Florry Wandle. Lady Hebe’s eyes followed hers.

“They are very good, so far as they go,” she replied, “but they are not quite capable of taking the lead. And they have really as much to do as they can manage. It is some one to replace myself when I am away that I want to find. And I could explain it all to you so well, and get advice from you too, I have no doubt.”

“I am very ignorant about such things,” said Blanche.

“Yes, but you have a good head, and you” – here Hebe smiled and blushed a little – “well, you must know how I mean. It would be so different explaining things to you: you would see them from our point of view. These girls are very good-natured and nice, but I never feel sure that they perfectly understand.”

And then she went on to tell Blanche further details about the little work she had inaugurated and carried on – so simply, and yet earnestly, that Blanche’s full interest was quickly won, and they went on talking eagerly till tea and interruption came, as Hebe had to help Mrs Harrowby with her hostess duties.

After tea, some of the ladies drew a little closer together: they were the committee, I believe, and Mrs Harrowby read aloud, for the benefit of all present, a short report of the work that had been done during the last three months, and then some one else sketched out what they hoped to do during the summer, and what they were in want of to enable them to carry out these intentions. Then Lady Hebe announced Miss Milwards offer of a day’s entertainment for the girls at Crossburn House, and Miss Milward was duly thanked; and there was a good deal of practical and some very unpractical talk, during which Mrs Harrowby and Hebe managed to introduce the Misses Derwent as new members whose assistance would be of great value, Hebe going on to say that Miss Derwent had kindly consented to take her own place during her absence in London. Altogether, it was cheerful and informal, and, to Stasy especially, very amusing.

But just as the Derwents were beginning to feel more at home, and Blanche had been introduced to Rosy Milward, and Stasy was laughing at Miss Wandle’s despair about her girls’ insubordination at the singing class, which was her special charge, there fell a wet blanket on the little party. The door opened, and “Lady Marth” was announced.

Hebe’s face sobered. She had not expected her guardian’s wife to call for her, as she had promised to be back before the hour at which Lady Marth wished her to drive with her to Blissmore, and Hebe was a very punctual person.

“Josephine!” she exclaimed. “It is not late. You said you did not want me till – ”

“Oh no, you are not late,” said the new-comer, after shaking hands with Mrs Harrowby and one or two others. “I only came on because Archie” – and here she suddenly turned and looked round her – “where is he? I thought he was behind me – ”

“Who – Archie Dunstan?” said Hebe.

“Yes; he wanted to see you about something or other – fishing or something – and he did not venture to come on here alone, when he heard there was a meeting going on. But it’s over, isn’t it? It doesn’t look very solemn.”

“Well, I think we have discussed everything we had to settle,” said Mrs Harrowby, getting up again from the chair beside Lady Marth, which she had momentarily occupied. “I must say a word or two to Miss – Oh, here he is, Lady Marth – here is Mr Dunstan.”

Chapter Eleven

Ruffled Plumage

“Yes, here I am,” said the young man, as he entered the room and hastened up to Mrs Harrowby, no one suspecting that in his rapid transit he had managed to take in the fact of certain individuals’ presence. “Yes, here I am; and I should apologise, I know, but it is all Lady Marth’s fault. She dragged me here, and then left me in the lurch with the ponies at the door, quite forgetting I was not the groom. And then, no doubt, she has been wondering ‘what in the world has become of that Archie.’”

The few within hearing could not help laughing, he reproduced so cleverly Lady Marth’s coldly languid tones.

She laughed herself, and her laugh was a pleasant one.

“You are very impertinent,” she said. “And as for dragging you here – you know you were dying for an excuse to get in to see what one of Hebe’s meetings was like. He reminded me of the legendary female who exists in so many families, you know, whose husband was a Freemason, and she hid herself to overhear their secrets,” she went on, to Miss Milward, who happened to be nearest her, Mrs Harrowby by this time having crossed the room to Florry Wandle and her cousin.

“Well, my curiosity has not been rewarded – nor punished,” said Mr Dunstan.

And as he spoke he glanced at Blanche, who was standing a little behind Rosy. He had already shaken hands with her, in an unobtrusive, friendly, yet deferential way, which somehow gratified her, simple and un-self-conscious as she was.

“He is such a rattle of a young fellow,” she said to herself; “I wonder he remembers having met me before.”

“When will Hebe be ready?” said Lady Marth, with a sort of soft complaint, as if she had been kept waiting for hours. “Does she need to go on talking confidentially to all those bakers’ and brewers’ daughters whom she is so fond of? – Can’t you give her a hint to be quick, Rosy?”

She half turned, laying her hand on what she supposed to be Miss Milward’s arm; but, somehow, Rosy had moved away. The arm Lady Marth actually touched was Blanche’s.

Blanche started. She had been watching Archie.

“Can I – ” she began; but before she had time to say more, Lady Marth drew herself back.

“Where is Rosy?” she said haughtily. “I thought – I thought the meeting was over, and that we were only ourselves. I really must go,” and she stood up, drawing her cloak, which had partly slipped off, more closely round her shoulders.

Mr Dunstans face grew stern, all the boyishness died out of it, and he looked ten years older.

“Miss Derwent,” he said, in a peculiarly clear and most respectful tone, “I do beg your pardon. I did not notice till this moment that you were standing. If you are going, Lady Marth, you will allow me to move your chair,” and, as he spoke, he drew it forward a little.

Lady Marth gave him an icy glance over her shoulder, and moved away. Blanche simply accepted the courtesy.

“I want to go too,” she said quietly; “but I must see Lady Hebe for one moment, first.”

“Don’t hurry,” said Mr Dunstan; “she is saying good-bye to those girls now, and she is looking towards you. It will do Lady Marth good to be kept waiting for once, so pray be as deliberate as you like. No one asked her to come here, unless – unless, indeed, I did so myself. I don’t – She is quite odious, sometimes,” he went on, disconnectedly, looking, for once, not equal to the occasion.

Blanche lifted her serene eyes to his face.

“Did you think she was rude to me?” she said. “Please don’t mind. She does not know me, or anything about me, so what does it matter? I should mind if any one I knew or cared about was disagreeable or unkind; but when it is a perfect stranger it is quite different.”

The young man looked at her with a mixture of admiration and perplexity. Had she not taken in the covert impertinence of Lady Marth’s speech?

He smiled a little as he replied. “You are very philosophical and very sensible, Miss Derwent,” he said. “But still, I am afraid you must think English people have very bad manners.”

“I have not seen many; I can scarcely judge,” she said. “But I should not like to say so. I think Lady Hebe and that old lady, Mrs Selwyn, and Mrs Harrowby – oh, and others I could name – have charming manners.”

“Why don’t you include my aunt – by marriage only – at Alderwood?” he said maliciously.

Blanche laughed a little.

“Some people can’t help being awkward, I suppose,” she said. “She means to be kind, I think.”

Archie’s face brightened.

“Now you are better than sensible,” he said eagerly – “you are truly kind and charitable. And you are not mistaken. My aunt does mean to be kind, so far as she can understand it. A great many ugly things in this world come from ignorance, after all.”

“And from want of imagination,” said Blanche, thoughtfully. “Want of power to put one’s self in the place of another.”

She was beginning to think there was more in this young man, who had struck her at first as a mere boyish rattle; she was beginning to have a touch of the delightful suspicion that he was one who would “understand” her; and her face grew luminous, and her sweet eyes brighter, as she spoke.

He glanced at her again, with a smile in which there was no disappointment for her.

“Yes, I often think so; I have come to think so. But you are very young to have made such a discovery.”