Blanche: A Story for Girls

“It might be a very pretty room,” said Blanche, “but it needs everything doing to it.”

The dining-room, though it had been furnished and used in a nominally orthodox way, was in not much better case. Still, a dining-room never, to ladies especially, seems such a serious matter. The library was the best-cared-for room, and it opened into a small boudoir or study, which was really charming. There were great capabilities about the house, though hitherto these had but scantily been made available. Up-stairs it was brighter. There was a sufficient number of rooms, though everywhere the same story of needful repair and embellishment.

Outside, to somewhat inexperienced eyes, it looked in fair order, for it needs the full luxuriance of summer vegetation to show how, in a neglected or semi-neglected garden, the weeds grow apace with or outrun the orthodox inhabitants of the soil.

The clerk was very patient. The minute attention bestowed by the visitors upon the little place seemed to him to savour of hope, and it was in his own interests, poor fellow, to secure a “let,” as it would increase his chances of promotion in the office. But at last Mrs Derwent and her daughters seemed satisfied.

“We shall miss our train to London,” said the former, “if we stay any longer; for I must see Mr Otterson on our way through the town.”

So saying, she led the way out, turning, as she stepped on to the drive, to give a last look at the house, with already a slight sense of prospective proprietorship. But she said nothing, and the two girls were quick-witted enough to follow her lead.

The flyman, for reasons best known to himself, had seen fit to drive out into the road again, and was waiting, more than half asleep, at the gate.

Blanche glanced round, and an idea struck her.

“Mamma,” she said, “if you are not tired, might we walk on a little way? I should like to have some idea of the neighbourhood, and to look in at the church for a moment.”

“Certainly,” said Mrs Derwent; “it cannot make five minutes’ difference. And, after all, even if it did, we could wait for a later train.”

“You won’t find the church open, madam, I’m afraid,” said the clerk. “But you might like to walk round it. From the other side there’s a nice view, Alderwood way. On a clear day you can see right across. And at the other end of the lane there’s one of the lodges of East Moddersham, Sir Conway Marth’s place – one of the places. You can see it any Thursday. The avenue is half a mile long by this approach.”

Chapter Five

The Girl with the Happy Face

As Derwent did not seem to feel any very lively interest in East Moddersham, and proud little Stasy reared her head at the very idea of going to see a show, like tourists, when, of course, they would there as guests!

But the mention of Alderwood had a different effect.

“Alderwood,” repeated Stasy’s mother, ignoring the young man’s last words. “Do you mean Sir Adam Nigel’s place? Why, it is quite at the other side of Blissmore, unless there are two Alderwoods. But that could scarcely be.”

“Sir Adam Nigel,” repeated the clerk in his turn, shaking his head. “I don’t recollect the name. Alderwood is the residence of Mrs Lilford – that’s to say, it is her property, but it has been let on a long lease to Lady Harriot Dunstan.”

“Ah,” said Mrs Derwent, turning to her daughters, “that explains it, then. Poor Sir Adam must be dead, for Mrs Lilford is a niece of his, a favourite niece, his brother’s only child. I am surprised at her letting a family place like that; and yet it must be the same. Only I can’t understand its being at this side of Blissmore.”

“It is three or four miles off, quite the other way,” said the young man, “but there is a view of it from this. It stands high, and I believe there is a short cut to it across the fields, skirting the town.”

“I see,” said Mrs Derwent consideringly. “Then you have never heard Sir Adam Nigel’s name? Perhaps you are not a native of the place, however.”

“No; I come from Yorkshire,” replied he. “I have only been down here a few months.”

“Ah; that explains it,” the lady said again.

They strolled round the church, and gazed over to where they were told Alderwood should be seen, if it were clearer. But a slight mist was already rising, and there was a mist over the older woman’s eyes too.

“Alderwood was close to my old home, you know,” she whispered to Blanche.

Then they walked round the green and down the short bit of lane separating it from the high-road, the clerk staying behind to tell the flyman to follow them.

“How does it all strike you, Blanchie dear?” said Mrs Derwent, with some anxiety in her tone.

“I like the house very much indeed,” the girl replied. “It might be made very nice. Would all that cost too much, mamma?”

“We must see,” Mrs Derwent replied. “But the place – the green, and all these other new houses. What do you think of the neighbourhood, in short?”

“They are pretty, bright little houses,” said Blanche, not fully understanding her mother’s drift. “But I think, on the whole, I like the old-fashionedness of – ”

“Of our house?” Stasy interrupted, clearly showing how the wind was setting in her direction.

Blanche smiled.

“Of our house, best,” she concluded.

“Yes, oh yes, most decidedly,” agreed Mrs Derwent. “But that was not exactly what I meant. I was wondering if the close neighbourhood of this sort of little colony may not be objectionable in any way.”

“I scarcely see how,” Blanche replied. “Of course, they are not the sort of people we should know; but still, these other houses make it less practically lonely. And once you look up all your friends, we shall be quite independent, you see, mamma.”

“Of course,” said Mrs Derwent, and she was going on to say more, when at that moment the sound of a horse or horses’ feet approaching them rapidly, made her stop short and look round.

They were just at the end of the lane. A few yards higher up the road, on the opposite side, large gates, and the vague outline of a small house standing at one side of them, were visible. This was the entrance to the great house – East Moddersham – of which the clerk had spoken with bated breath. The sounds were coming towards where the Derwents stood, from the direction of the town, so, though they naturally turned to look, they in no way associated them with the near neighbourhood of the East Moddersham lodge.

There were two riders – a lady, and not far behind her, a groom. They were not going very fast; the horses seemed a little tired, and were not without traces of cross-country riding through November mud. Still they seemed to go by quickly, and as the first comer – a girl evidently, and quite a young girl – passed, a slight exclamation made both Mrs Derwent and Stasy start slightly.

“Did you speak, Blanchie?” said her sister; and as she glanced at Blanche’s face, she saw, with surprise, that she was smiling.

In her turn, Blanche started.

“I – I really don’t know if I said anything, or if it was she who did,” she replied. “Did you see her, Stasy? Did you, mamma? It was the girl at the station – the girl with the happy face.”

But neither her mother nor Stasy had known the little episode at the time, though they remembered Blanche’s telling them of it afterwards.

“I wish I had looked at her more,” said Stasy regretfully. “I didn’t notice her face; I was so taken up in looking at her altogether, you know – the horse, and the whole get-up. It did look so nice! Shall we be able to ride when we come to live here, mamma? It is one of the things I have longed to be in England for.”

“I hope so,” said Mrs Derwent. “At least we can manage a pony and pony-carriage. I think you could enjoy driving yourselves almost as much as riding. I wonder who the girl is. Did she look as happy this time, Blanche?”

“Yes; it seems the character of her face. I couldn’t picture her anything else,” Blanche replied. “I wonder, too, who she is.”

“She rode in at those big gates a little farther on,” Stasy said.

Just as she spoke, the clerk came up to them again, followed by the fly. He overheard Stasy’s last words, and ventured, though quite respectfully, to volunteer some information.

“That lady who just rode past,” he said, “is Lady Hebe Shetland; she is a ward of Sir Conway’s. A very fine-looking young lady she is considered. She has been hunting, no doubt. She is a splendid horsewoman.”

“Of course, there is a great deal of hunting hereabouts,” said Mrs Derwent. “It was my own part of the country in my young days.”

And something in her tone, though she was too kindly to indulge in “snubs,” made the young man conscious that the ladies were of a different class to most of the applicants for houses at the office in Enneslie Street.

They soon found themselves there again; Mr Otterson receiving them with urbanity, which increased when he found Mrs Derwent a prospective tenant, likely to do more than “nibble.”