Blanche: A Story for Girls

“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?”