Blanche: A Story for Girls

“You shall have your caps; no fear of that,” replied Miss Halliday. “It’s not real ladies that break their word.” And with a little bow of dismissal, which Mrs Burgess meekly obeyed, she opened the door for the latter to make her way out.

“I’ve done no harm,” thought the little woman, with satisfaction; “she’s too pleased to have got hold of some gossip, to mind my plain-speaking.”

Half-an-hour or so later, Mrs Derwent and Blanche, who had been tempted by the loveliness of the autumn afternoon, to go farther than they had intended, made their way home through the fields at the back of the house, entering by a door in the garden wall, of which Blanche had the key. Half-way up the gravel path, the sound of voices reached them through the open glass door of the drawing-room.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Blanche, “whom can Stasy have got in there? She seems to be talking very busily, and – yes, laughing too. Listen, mamma.”

“It must be Herty,” Mrs Derwent replied, half indifferently, for she was feeling a little tired, and, as could not but happen now and then, for all her courage, somewhat depressed. “Herty, or Miss Halliday,” she added.

“No,” said Blanche, standing still for a moment. “Miss Halliday must be in the shop, as Stasy isn’t Mamma,” with a quick and slightly nervous misgiving, “I’m sure I hear a man’s voice. – Surely,” she thought to herself, “it can’t be – oh no, he would never come again in that way.”

“Who can it be?” said Mrs Derwent, for her ears, too, were quick.

They hastened on, Stasy’s cheerful tones banishing any apprehension. As they got to the door, Blanche naturally fell back, and Mrs Derwent stood alone on the step outside, looking into the room.

There was Stasy on a low seat, drawn up closely to her mother’s own pet arm-chair, in which was comfortably ensconced a figure, strange, yet familiar. Stasy’s face was turned from Mrs Derwent, but the visitor at once caught sight of her, and, as her lips framed the words, “Sir Adam!” he started up from his place and hastened forward.

“Stasy!” he exclaimed. “My little Stasy, at last!” And Stasy the younger, glancing up, saw the words were not addressed to her.

“Mamma, mamma!” she exclaimed. “You see who it is, don’t you? Isn’t it delightful? We have been longing for you to come in; but I’ve been telling Sir Adam everything.”

For a moment or two Mrs Derwent could scarcely speak. Meeting again after the separation of a quarter of a century must always bring with it more or less mingled emotions, and in this case there was much to complicate Mrs Derwent’s natural feelings. It was not all at once easy to throw aside the apparent neglect of her once almost fatherly friend, which for long she had explained to herself by believing him dead; and yet here he now stood before her, her hand grasped in both his own, the tears in his kind old eyes, as moved as herself – to outward appearance, even more so.

“Stasy,” he repeated; “my dear little girl, can you ever forgive me? I have not really forgotten you.” This appeal to her generosity was all that was required.

“Dear Sir Adam,” she said, “I never really doubted you.”

“Until quite lately, you know,” he went on, “of course I thought things all right with you, always excepting, of course, your great sorrow some years ago. And I was pretty ill myself for a good while. I am stronger now than I have been for years past, thanks to all the ridiculous coddling the doctors have insisted on, as if my life was of much value to any one.”

“I am so glad,” said Mrs Derwent fervently.

“Well, upon my soul,” he replied, “I think I shall begin to be glad of it myself. I feel as if I’d got something to do now, besides running about from one health-resort to another.”

He started, as at that moment Blanche entered the room.

“And this is Blanche!” he exclaimed, with undisguised admiration. “Stasy, my dear, you did not prepare me for two such daughters.”

“But I did,” interposed the younger Stasy, from behind her mother; “at least about Blanche. Didn’t I tell you how lovely she was, Sir Adam?” she went on, mischievously, rewarded by the sight of the rosy colour which crept up over Blanche’s fair face.

Stasy’s high spirits, and the touch of impishness which generally accompanied any unusual influx of these, were a godsend at this moment, helping to tide over the inevitable constraint accompanying any crisis of the kind, in a way that Blanche’s calm self-control could not have achieved. The younger girl was simply bubbling over with delight, and it was very soon evident that she had completely gained Sir Adam’s heart; while the amount of information she had managed to impart during their half-hour’s tête-à-tête perfectly astounded her mother.

“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.”