Chapter Twenty.A Nephew and an Aunt.Blanche did “mind,” for she was anxious to go back to the workroom. But Mr Dunstan had been very kind, and it was not in her nature to be unyielding in small lings.“Perhaps he has something more to tell me about, Hebe,” she thought, as she led the way out through the open glass door.“Miss Derwent,” began Archie again, when they had strolled towards the farther end of the long strip, “the fact of the matter is—and you must forgive me if it seems impertinent—I cannot stand this.”“What?” asked Blanche, looking up in bewilderment.“This—this position for you,” he said. “This horrid slavery.”“Oh,” said Blanche, somewhat coldly. “I couldn’t think what you meant. It’s very good of you, but you really needn’t trouble about it. On the whole, I think we are very fortunate indeed. Lots of people have far worse things to bear. I thought you were going to tell me something about Hebe.”“I see you do think me impertinent,” Mr Dunstan resumed, with some slight bitterness in his tone. “You don’t understand. I don’t care about ‘lots of people’s’ troubles. It isyouI care about. It is foryouI can’t endure it.”Blanche looked up again, this time with slightly deepened colour.“Thank you again,” she said, “for your kindly meant sympathy. But if you knew me better, or had known me longer, you would understand that there are many kinds of troubles which would be much worse to me. I am really not unhappy at all—none of us are. Indeed, in some ways, the having more to do makes life more interesting.” And then she stopped, at a loss what more to say—feeling, indeed, that there was nothing more to be said.Archie grew desperate.“You are not like any girl I have ever met,” he said; “you won’t understand me. Can’t you see that the reason I mind it so much is that I care so much for you?”“Mr Dunstan!” exclaimed Blanche, and in the two words a calmer hearer would have detected some indignation as well as the astonishment which was unmistakable. “No, I don’t understand you,” she went on. “We are almost strangers.”“Strangers!” he repeated reproachfully. “You have never seemed a stranger to me since the first day I saw you, for since then you have never been out of my thoughts. Youmustunderstand me now. Can I speak more plainly? I don’t want to vex you by seeming exaggerated, but I care for you, and have done so all these months, as much, I honestly believe, as it is possible for a man to care for a woman. I did not mean to have said this so soon. Of course I don’t ask you to say you care for me as yet, but don’t you think you might get to do so in time? I could beverypatient.”It was impossible to reply with any feeling of indignation to a suit so gently urged.“I am very sorry,” was all Blanche could say.“I would do anything,” he went on—“anything in the world that you wished. I am perfectly independent, entirely my own master, and I have no one very near me. Your family would be like my own to me. It would be a delight to be able to release them from any necessity like this present arrangement.”“You are very good,” murmured Blanche, really touched, “but—”“Don’t say ‘but’ just yet; let me finish,” he went on. “I am leaving England almost immediately, for two months at least. I won’t ask to see you again till I come back. I won’t say anything if you feel that you must stay on here in the meantime, though I would give worlds to see you back in your own home. If you will only agree to think it over, to try to get accustomed to the idea? That is all I ask just now.”Blanche stopped short. They had been walking on slowly.“Please don’t say any more,” she said. “Mr Dunstan, I can’t agree to anything, I don’t care for you—I mean, I don’t love you in theveryleast. I never dreamt of your having thought of me in any way. You must see, under the circumstances, it would be perfectly impossible for me to say I would try to get to care for you, except as a friend. Your very goodness and kindness make it impossible. I do thank you most heartily for what you have said about us all I am not proud in some ways. If—if I loved anybody, it would not be painful to me to accept whatever he was able to do for those I love. But you wouldn’t have me try to care for you because of that?”“It might come to be for myself,” said Archie. “Certainly, I agree with you that nothing I could possibly do would deserve such a reward.”“I don’t mean that,” said Blanche. “I could never disassociate the two. I should always feel that pity and sympathy had made you imagine your own feelings deeper than they were.”“No, no,” he almost interrupted. “It was long before I knew of all this. It is hard upon me that you will not even give me the chance, which you might have done had circumstances been otherwise.”Blanche shook her head.“I want to be quite fair,” she said. “Honestly, I can’t imagine myself ever caring for you in that way, putting all secondary feelings out of consideration.”“You are so young,” he said, “you can’t judge.”“I think I can,” she replied. “I am older in some ways than you imagine. Good-bye, Mr Dunstan,” she went on. “I am glad you are going away, for I hate to feel myself ungrateful, and yet, what could I do? Good-bye.”She held out her hand.“Good-bye, then,” he repeated, and in another moment he was gone.She was wanted indoors, Blanche knew. A quarter of an hour before, she had felt almost feverishly anxious for Mr Dunstan to leave, for she was much interested in the important order they had unexpectedly received. Nevertheless, when she had seen the young man’s figure disappear into the house, she turned again and slowly retraced her footsteps along the gravel walk to the farther end of the garden, feeling that for a few minutes she must be alone.Every sensation seemed absorbed for the time in an intense, overpowering rush of pity for the disappointment she felt she had inflicted.“I wonder if all girls feel like this when this sort of thing happens,” she said to herself. “If so, I pitythem; it is quite horrible. I feel as if I had been so terribly unkind and ungrateful. But how could I have guessed that such a thing was in his mind! It seems too extraordinary. And why should he have thought ofme, among the crowds of girls he must meet?”She went on musing to herself a little longer. Then, though not without some amount of effort, she made her way slowly back to the house.“I will not tell mamma,” she decided. “I don’t think it would be wrong not to do so, and though she is so good and unworldly, she might feel, considering everything, a little disappointed that I had been so decided about it.”Five minutes later she was in the middle of a discussion as to the prettiest shade of blue for Miss Levett’s bridesmaids’ hats.The next few weeks passed, on the whole, quickly; for though it was what Miss Halliday described as “between the seasons,” the good woman had never, even in her palmiest days, been so busy. She was overflowing with delight; her most sanguine dreams bade fair to be realised.It was an unusually fine and hot summer, and early autumn crept on imperceptibly, so mild and genial did the weather continue. Blissmore and the neighbourhood broke out into an unprecedented succession of tennis and garden-parties, picnics and the like. And whether the entertainers and the entertained on these festive occasions belonged to the exclusive county society or to the inhabitants of the town itself, the practical result, so far as the milliner and her friends were concerned, was the same.Everybody needed new hats and bonnets, for a fine and prolonged summer necessarily makes great havoc with such articles of feminine attire, and orders succeeded orders from all directions with almost overwhelming rapidity.The secret of the young milliners’ extended fame was not long left undivulged. For one day, a week or two after young Mr Dunstan’s visit, a carriage from Alderwood drew up again at the door in the High Street, and from it descended, without any preliminary summons by bell or knocker, the short stout figure of Lady Harriot in person.She walked straight into the shop, looking round as she did so with short-sighted eyes. The first person they lighted upon was Miss Halliday.“Oh—ah,” began the visitor, “I came to see Miss Derwent. Is she not here?”Blanche emerged from the farther part of the shop and came forward.“How de do?” began the old lady, holding out her hand with what she intended for marked affability. “I’m pleased to see you again. Well, now, I don’t exactly know whether I should say that. At least, I mean, I should rather have seen you at Pinnerton than here. I’m very sorry for what’s happened—I am indeed. Mrs Selwyn told me all about it, and I promised her I’d look you up as soon as I came back. I think you’re a very brave girl, I do indeed, my dear. I wish you success with all my heart.”“Thank you,” said Blanche cordially. “It was very good of Mrs Selwyn to think of us. And is there anything I can do for you, Lady Harriot?” she went on, with a twinkle of fun in her eyes. “I do hope you want a new bonnet.”The fun was lost upon Lady Harriot, whose density was her predominating characteristic, but the practical suggestion was quite to her mind.“Yes,” she said, “that’s just what I do want. I’ve gone through such a number this year in London, with the fine weather and the sun and the dust. And I was going to bring down one or two new ones with me, just when I saw Aunt Grace; so then I said to her I would wait till I came back here, and see what you could do for me. And I hope to get you some more customers, but the best way to begin is by getting something for myself. One’s head shows off a bonnet so, you know.”Blanche glanced up at the good woman’s headgear with some trepidation. She felt rather caught in her own trap, for Lady Harriot’s bonnets were remarkable, to say the least. Like many stout, elderly ladies, she loved bright colours, and was by no means amenable to her milliners suggestions, and Blanche’s misgivings were great as to the desirability of Lady Harriot in the shape of an advertisement.An amusing consultation followed. Blanche would have liked to summon Stasy to her aid, but she dared not.“What would happen,” she asked herself, “if Stasy made fun of the old woman to her face?Icouldn’t keep my gravity, even if Lady Harriot didn’t find it out.”And probably her own tact and powers of persuasion were far more effectual than Stasy’s rather despotic decisions on all questions of taste or arrangement.And Lady Harriot departed in immense satisfaction, firmly convinced that the bonnet was to owe its success to her own suggestions, and that Blanche Derwent was really “a sensible girl, with no nonsense about her.”“And really very pretty,” she added to herself. “I must call on their mother the next time I am in the town, and I mustn’t forget to speak about them everywhere. I do hope, for their sakes as well as my own, that she’ll remember all I said about the bonnet.”Two or three days later saw her again at Miss Halliday’s. The bonnet was ready, and this time Stasy was with her sister, having faithfully promised to behave with immaculate propriety. Blanche’s face was very grave as she lifted out her handiwork—or more strictly speaking, Stasy’s, for it was the young girls clever fingers that were usually entrusted with orders of special importance—out of its nest of tissue-paper, and held it up for their visitors inspection.Out came Lady Harriot’spince-nez.“Very nice, very nice indeed, so far as I can tell before trying it on. I will do so at once.” And she proceeded to divest herself of the bonnet she had on, a creation which Stasy’s eyes took in with silent horror.“Stasy!” said Blanche, when the new erection was placed on Lady Harriot’s head, and there was a decided touch of triumph in her tone.Stasy came a little nearer.“It must be just a shade farther forward,” she said, skilfully touching it as she spoke.Lady Harriot submitted, but looked at the girl with surprise.“Do you mean to say?” she began, hesitating.“Oh yes,” said Blanche, replying to the unspoken inquiry. “My sister’s much cleverer at millinery than I am. She always does our most particular things.”“Really,” said Lady Harriot; but she could not say more, for by this time she was absorbed in her own reflection in the looking-glass.“Doesn’t it look nice?” said Blanche gleefully. “Youarepleased with it, aren’t you, Lady Harriot?”“Yes; it really does you great credit. I like it better than any bonnet I’ve had in London this year. You have so thoroughly carried out all my suggestions—that is a great point for young beginners.”“And, of course, we have the benefit of Miss Halliday’s experience, too,” said Blanche, glancing towards their good little friend, who, she was determined, should not be left altogether out in the cold.Miss Halliday smiled back to her. It was a proud day for the milliner when a woman of Lady Harriot’s position patronised her shop, but she was well content that all the honour and glory should fall to the sisters’ share.“Ah yes, of course,” Lady Harriot replied civilly. “Now, my dear Miss Derwent, I shall make a point of wearing this bonnet everywhere. I wish my nephew could see me in it. He is very particular about what I wear, and he’s really quite rude about my bonnets sometimes. I must get my winter ones from you, and then he will see them, for he is out of England just now for some time.—Is Mrs Derwent at home this afternoon?” she went on. “Do you think she could see me?”“I am sure she would be very pleased,” said Blanche readily. “She is in the drawing-room,” and as she spoke she led the way thither.Lady Harriot exerted herself to be more than agreeable, and Mrs Derwent was really won over, by her visitors praise of her daughters, to meet her present cordiality responsively.“By-the-bye,” said Lady Harriot, as she rose to take leave, “I expect a few neighbours the day after to-morrow at afternoon tea. I shall have some people staying in the house by then, and we like to have tea in the garden in this lovely weather. Couldn’t you manage to come over?”Blanche glanced at her mother doubtfully.“We are really very busy,” Blanche began; but her mother interrupted her.“I think you might give yourselves a holiday for once,” she said, and the old lady hastened to endorse this.“Yes, indeed,” she said good-naturedly. “All work and no play. Oh dear, I forget the rest, but I’m sure it meant it wasn’t a good thing. Won’t you bring them yourself, Mrs Derwent? Your younger daughter is not out, I suppose; but you know this sort of thing doesn’t count, does it?”Mrs Derwent smiled.“We can’t think much about questions of that kind, now,” she said. “But I shall be very glad to bring Stasy too.”“That’s right,” said Lady Harriot, increasingly pleased with them because she was feeling so very pleased with herself. “Then I shall expect you between four and five. You may like to walk about the grounds a little if you come early,” she added to Mrs Derwent, “as you used to know the place so well.—And remember, my dear,” she said to Blanche in conclusion, “that whomever I introduce you to, it will be done with a purpose. It will be an excellent thing for you to see some of the people about, especially as I shall make a point of wearing my bonnet.”Blanche’s face looked very grave when their visitor had taken leave, and her mother glanced at her anxiously, fearing that Lady Harriot’s eminently clumsy remarks at the end had annoyed her.“You mustn’t mind it, dear,” she said. “She is a stupid, awkward woman, but she means to be kind now, and we must really take people as we find them, to some extent.”Blanche started as if recalling her thoughts, which had, indeed, been straying in a perfectly different direction.“Of course we must,” she said cheerfully. “I don’t mind what she said in the very least. I don’t particularly care about going there, it is true; but if it amuses Stasy, and if you don’t mind it, mamma, I daresay I shall like it very well. We may see Miss Milward, and hear about poor Lady Hebe.” And then for the moment the subject was dismissed, though Mrs Derwent had her own thoughts about it.“It is strange,” she said to herself, “how things come about. To think that our first invitation of any kind from the people I used to be one of, should have come in this way—almost out of pity.”
Blanche did “mind,” for she was anxious to go back to the workroom. But Mr Dunstan had been very kind, and it was not in her nature to be unyielding in small lings.
“Perhaps he has something more to tell me about, Hebe,” she thought, as she led the way out through the open glass door.
“Miss Derwent,” began Archie again, when they had strolled towards the farther end of the long strip, “the fact of the matter is—and you must forgive me if it seems impertinent—I cannot stand this.”
“What?” asked Blanche, looking up in bewilderment.
“This—this position for you,” he said. “This horrid slavery.”
“Oh,” said Blanche, somewhat coldly. “I couldn’t think what you meant. It’s very good of you, but you really needn’t trouble about it. On the whole, I think we are very fortunate indeed. Lots of people have far worse things to bear. I thought you were going to tell me something about Hebe.”
“I see you do think me impertinent,” Mr Dunstan resumed, with some slight bitterness in his tone. “You don’t understand. I don’t care about ‘lots of people’s’ troubles. It isyouI care about. It is foryouI can’t endure it.”
Blanche looked up again, this time with slightly deepened colour.
“Thank you again,” she said, “for your kindly meant sympathy. But if you knew me better, or had known me longer, you would understand that there are many kinds of troubles which would be much worse to me. I am really not unhappy at all—none of us are. Indeed, in some ways, the having more to do makes life more interesting.” And then she stopped, at a loss what more to say—feeling, indeed, that there was nothing more to be said.
Archie grew desperate.
“You are not like any girl I have ever met,” he said; “you won’t understand me. Can’t you see that the reason I mind it so much is that I care so much for you?”
“Mr Dunstan!” exclaimed Blanche, and in the two words a calmer hearer would have detected some indignation as well as the astonishment which was unmistakable. “No, I don’t understand you,” she went on. “We are almost strangers.”
“Strangers!” he repeated reproachfully. “You have never seemed a stranger to me since the first day I saw you, for since then you have never been out of my thoughts. Youmustunderstand me now. Can I speak more plainly? I don’t want to vex you by seeming exaggerated, but I care for you, and have done so all these months, as much, I honestly believe, as it is possible for a man to care for a woman. I did not mean to have said this so soon. Of course I don’t ask you to say you care for me as yet, but don’t you think you might get to do so in time? I could beverypatient.”
It was impossible to reply with any feeling of indignation to a suit so gently urged.
“I am very sorry,” was all Blanche could say.
“I would do anything,” he went on—“anything in the world that you wished. I am perfectly independent, entirely my own master, and I have no one very near me. Your family would be like my own to me. It would be a delight to be able to release them from any necessity like this present arrangement.”
“You are very good,” murmured Blanche, really touched, “but—”
“Don’t say ‘but’ just yet; let me finish,” he went on. “I am leaving England almost immediately, for two months at least. I won’t ask to see you again till I come back. I won’t say anything if you feel that you must stay on here in the meantime, though I would give worlds to see you back in your own home. If you will only agree to think it over, to try to get accustomed to the idea? That is all I ask just now.”
Blanche stopped short. They had been walking on slowly.
“Please don’t say any more,” she said. “Mr Dunstan, I can’t agree to anything, I don’t care for you—I mean, I don’t love you in theveryleast. I never dreamt of your having thought of me in any way. You must see, under the circumstances, it would be perfectly impossible for me to say I would try to get to care for you, except as a friend. Your very goodness and kindness make it impossible. I do thank you most heartily for what you have said about us all I am not proud in some ways. If—if I loved anybody, it would not be painful to me to accept whatever he was able to do for those I love. But you wouldn’t have me try to care for you because of that?”
“It might come to be for myself,” said Archie. “Certainly, I agree with you that nothing I could possibly do would deserve such a reward.”
“I don’t mean that,” said Blanche. “I could never disassociate the two. I should always feel that pity and sympathy had made you imagine your own feelings deeper than they were.”
“No, no,” he almost interrupted. “It was long before I knew of all this. It is hard upon me that you will not even give me the chance, which you might have done had circumstances been otherwise.”
Blanche shook her head.
“I want to be quite fair,” she said. “Honestly, I can’t imagine myself ever caring for you in that way, putting all secondary feelings out of consideration.”
“You are so young,” he said, “you can’t judge.”
“I think I can,” she replied. “I am older in some ways than you imagine. Good-bye, Mr Dunstan,” she went on. “I am glad you are going away, for I hate to feel myself ungrateful, and yet, what could I do? Good-bye.”
She held out her hand.
“Good-bye, then,” he repeated, and in another moment he was gone.
She was wanted indoors, Blanche knew. A quarter of an hour before, she had felt almost feverishly anxious for Mr Dunstan to leave, for she was much interested in the important order they had unexpectedly received. Nevertheless, when she had seen the young man’s figure disappear into the house, she turned again and slowly retraced her footsteps along the gravel walk to the farther end of the garden, feeling that for a few minutes she must be alone.
Every sensation seemed absorbed for the time in an intense, overpowering rush of pity for the disappointment she felt she had inflicted.
“I wonder if all girls feel like this when this sort of thing happens,” she said to herself. “If so, I pitythem; it is quite horrible. I feel as if I had been so terribly unkind and ungrateful. But how could I have guessed that such a thing was in his mind! It seems too extraordinary. And why should he have thought ofme, among the crowds of girls he must meet?”
She went on musing to herself a little longer. Then, though not without some amount of effort, she made her way slowly back to the house.
“I will not tell mamma,” she decided. “I don’t think it would be wrong not to do so, and though she is so good and unworldly, she might feel, considering everything, a little disappointed that I had been so decided about it.”
Five minutes later she was in the middle of a discussion as to the prettiest shade of blue for Miss Levett’s bridesmaids’ hats.
The next few weeks passed, on the whole, quickly; for though it was what Miss Halliday described as “between the seasons,” the good woman had never, even in her palmiest days, been so busy. She was overflowing with delight; her most sanguine dreams bade fair to be realised.
It was an unusually fine and hot summer, and early autumn crept on imperceptibly, so mild and genial did the weather continue. Blissmore and the neighbourhood broke out into an unprecedented succession of tennis and garden-parties, picnics and the like. And whether the entertainers and the entertained on these festive occasions belonged to the exclusive county society or to the inhabitants of the town itself, the practical result, so far as the milliner and her friends were concerned, was the same.
Everybody needed new hats and bonnets, for a fine and prolonged summer necessarily makes great havoc with such articles of feminine attire, and orders succeeded orders from all directions with almost overwhelming rapidity.
The secret of the young milliners’ extended fame was not long left undivulged. For one day, a week or two after young Mr Dunstan’s visit, a carriage from Alderwood drew up again at the door in the High Street, and from it descended, without any preliminary summons by bell or knocker, the short stout figure of Lady Harriot in person.
She walked straight into the shop, looking round as she did so with short-sighted eyes. The first person they lighted upon was Miss Halliday.
“Oh—ah,” began the visitor, “I came to see Miss Derwent. Is she not here?”
Blanche emerged from the farther part of the shop and came forward.
“How de do?” began the old lady, holding out her hand with what she intended for marked affability. “I’m pleased to see you again. Well, now, I don’t exactly know whether I should say that. At least, I mean, I should rather have seen you at Pinnerton than here. I’m very sorry for what’s happened—I am indeed. Mrs Selwyn told me all about it, and I promised her I’d look you up as soon as I came back. I think you’re a very brave girl, I do indeed, my dear. I wish you success with all my heart.”
“Thank you,” said Blanche cordially. “It was very good of Mrs Selwyn to think of us. And is there anything I can do for you, Lady Harriot?” she went on, with a twinkle of fun in her eyes. “I do hope you want a new bonnet.”
The fun was lost upon Lady Harriot, whose density was her predominating characteristic, but the practical suggestion was quite to her mind.
“Yes,” she said, “that’s just what I do want. I’ve gone through such a number this year in London, with the fine weather and the sun and the dust. And I was going to bring down one or two new ones with me, just when I saw Aunt Grace; so then I said to her I would wait till I came back here, and see what you could do for me. And I hope to get you some more customers, but the best way to begin is by getting something for myself. One’s head shows off a bonnet so, you know.”
Blanche glanced up at the good woman’s headgear with some trepidation. She felt rather caught in her own trap, for Lady Harriot’s bonnets were remarkable, to say the least. Like many stout, elderly ladies, she loved bright colours, and was by no means amenable to her milliners suggestions, and Blanche’s misgivings were great as to the desirability of Lady Harriot in the shape of an advertisement.
An amusing consultation followed. Blanche would have liked to summon Stasy to her aid, but she dared not.
“What would happen,” she asked herself, “if Stasy made fun of the old woman to her face?Icouldn’t keep my gravity, even if Lady Harriot didn’t find it out.”
And probably her own tact and powers of persuasion were far more effectual than Stasy’s rather despotic decisions on all questions of taste or arrangement.
And Lady Harriot departed in immense satisfaction, firmly convinced that the bonnet was to owe its success to her own suggestions, and that Blanche Derwent was really “a sensible girl, with no nonsense about her.”
“And really very pretty,” she added to herself. “I must call on their mother the next time I am in the town, and I mustn’t forget to speak about them everywhere. I do hope, for their sakes as well as my own, that she’ll remember all I said about the bonnet.”
Two or three days later saw her again at Miss Halliday’s. The bonnet was ready, and this time Stasy was with her sister, having faithfully promised to behave with immaculate propriety. Blanche’s face was very grave as she lifted out her handiwork—or more strictly speaking, Stasy’s, for it was the young girls clever fingers that were usually entrusted with orders of special importance—out of its nest of tissue-paper, and held it up for their visitors inspection.
Out came Lady Harriot’spince-nez.
“Very nice, very nice indeed, so far as I can tell before trying it on. I will do so at once.” And she proceeded to divest herself of the bonnet she had on, a creation which Stasy’s eyes took in with silent horror.
“Stasy!” said Blanche, when the new erection was placed on Lady Harriot’s head, and there was a decided touch of triumph in her tone.
Stasy came a little nearer.
“It must be just a shade farther forward,” she said, skilfully touching it as she spoke.
Lady Harriot submitted, but looked at the girl with surprise.
“Do you mean to say?” she began, hesitating.
“Oh yes,” said Blanche, replying to the unspoken inquiry. “My sister’s much cleverer at millinery than I am. She always does our most particular things.”
“Really,” said Lady Harriot; but she could not say more, for by this time she was absorbed in her own reflection in the looking-glass.
“Doesn’t it look nice?” said Blanche gleefully. “Youarepleased with it, aren’t you, Lady Harriot?”
“Yes; it really does you great credit. I like it better than any bonnet I’ve had in London this year. You have so thoroughly carried out all my suggestions—that is a great point for young beginners.”
“And, of course, we have the benefit of Miss Halliday’s experience, too,” said Blanche, glancing towards their good little friend, who, she was determined, should not be left altogether out in the cold.
Miss Halliday smiled back to her. It was a proud day for the milliner when a woman of Lady Harriot’s position patronised her shop, but she was well content that all the honour and glory should fall to the sisters’ share.
“Ah yes, of course,” Lady Harriot replied civilly. “Now, my dear Miss Derwent, I shall make a point of wearing this bonnet everywhere. I wish my nephew could see me in it. He is very particular about what I wear, and he’s really quite rude about my bonnets sometimes. I must get my winter ones from you, and then he will see them, for he is out of England just now for some time.—Is Mrs Derwent at home this afternoon?” she went on. “Do you think she could see me?”
“I am sure she would be very pleased,” said Blanche readily. “She is in the drawing-room,” and as she spoke she led the way thither.
Lady Harriot exerted herself to be more than agreeable, and Mrs Derwent was really won over, by her visitors praise of her daughters, to meet her present cordiality responsively.
“By-the-bye,” said Lady Harriot, as she rose to take leave, “I expect a few neighbours the day after to-morrow at afternoon tea. I shall have some people staying in the house by then, and we like to have tea in the garden in this lovely weather. Couldn’t you manage to come over?”
Blanche glanced at her mother doubtfully.
“We are really very busy,” Blanche began; but her mother interrupted her.
“I think you might give yourselves a holiday for once,” she said, and the old lady hastened to endorse this.
“Yes, indeed,” she said good-naturedly. “All work and no play. Oh dear, I forget the rest, but I’m sure it meant it wasn’t a good thing. Won’t you bring them yourself, Mrs Derwent? Your younger daughter is not out, I suppose; but you know this sort of thing doesn’t count, does it?”
Mrs Derwent smiled.
“We can’t think much about questions of that kind, now,” she said. “But I shall be very glad to bring Stasy too.”
“That’s right,” said Lady Harriot, increasingly pleased with them because she was feeling so very pleased with herself. “Then I shall expect you between four and five. You may like to walk about the grounds a little if you come early,” she added to Mrs Derwent, “as you used to know the place so well.—And remember, my dear,” she said to Blanche in conclusion, “that whomever I introduce you to, it will be done with a purpose. It will be an excellent thing for you to see some of the people about, especially as I shall make a point of wearing my bonnet.”
Blanche’s face looked very grave when their visitor had taken leave, and her mother glanced at her anxiously, fearing that Lady Harriot’s eminently clumsy remarks at the end had annoyed her.
“You mustn’t mind it, dear,” she said. “She is a stupid, awkward woman, but she means to be kind now, and we must really take people as we find them, to some extent.”
Blanche started as if recalling her thoughts, which had, indeed, been straying in a perfectly different direction.
“Of course we must,” she said cheerfully. “I don’t mind what she said in the very least. I don’t particularly care about going there, it is true; but if it amuses Stasy, and if you don’t mind it, mamma, I daresay I shall like it very well. We may see Miss Milward, and hear about poor Lady Hebe.” And then for the moment the subject was dismissed, though Mrs Derwent had her own thoughts about it.
“It is strange,” she said to herself, “how things come about. To think that our first invitation of any kind from the people I used to be one of, should have come in this way—almost out of pity.”
Chapter Twenty One.Mrs Burgess’s Caps.Blanche’s hope or expectation of meeting Miss Milward at Alderwood was not fulfilled. She had not, however, been there many minutes before she caught sight of Mrs Harrowby, the wife of the Pinnerton vicar, among the guests, and of her she made inquiry as to Rosy’s absence.She was away, paying visits, for a few weeks, Mrs Harrowby replied; and something in her manner made Blanche feel that it was better to hazard no further inquiry, as she had been half-intending to do, about Lady Hebe herself. For some slight allusion to the East Moddersham family only drew forth the remark that the Marths were expected back some time in October.“Either,” thought Blanche, “she doesn’t know how bad it is, or she has been asked not to speak of it.”“The guild girls are getting on wonderfully well,” volunteered the vicars wife, “thanks to Adela Bracy and her cousin, though, in the first place, thanks to you. They miss you very much—indeed, we all do, at Pinnerton. Adela says you have been most kind in allowing her to apply to you about some little difficulties that occurred;” as was the case.“I was so sorry to have to give it up,” said Blanche simply. “I only wish I could help Miss Bracy more.”Just then Lady Harriot appeared with some of the numerous members of the Enneslie family in tow, to whom Miss Derwent was introduced with great propriety. Some irrepressible allusions to the bonnet followed on the good hostess’s part, which Blanche minded very much less than the Misses Enneslie minded them for her. They were nice girls, ready to be almost enthusiastic in their admiration of Blanche and of her sister, whom the youngest of them took under her wing, with the evident intention of making her enjoy herself. And the sight of Stasy’s brightening face was enough to make her sister’s spirits rise at once, more especially when she saw how, on her side, her mother was enjoying a tour of the grounds under old Mr Dunstan’s escort.Other introductions followed, several of them to families whose names were not altogether unfamiliar to the girl, for as they sat working together, Miss Halliday was not above beguiling the time by a little local gossip of a harmless kind. And Lady Harriot’s good offices did not stop with “the county.” Blanche was trotted out, so to say, for the benefit of some of the Alderwood house-party, her hostess challenging their admiration, not only of thechef d’oeuvrereposing on her own head, but of the charming “confections,” which she described as to be seen in the High Street at Blissmore.“You must really drive in with me one day, before you leave,” she would exclaim to some special crony of her own. “You would think yourself in Paris, you really would.—And yet none of your things have come from there as yet, have they, Miss Derwent?”“None of those you saw, I think,” Blanche replied, “though I did write for a few models to a shop we used to get our own things from. The hat I have on is copied from one of them.”“I was just thinking how pretty it was,” said the mother of some daughters, standing beside her. “I should extremely wish to have one like it for each of my girls, if we may call some day soon. That’s to say, if you don’t mind our copying yours, Miss Derwent. It isn’t as if we lived in this neighbourhood; we’re only here for a few days.”“I shall be delighted to make them for you,” Blanche replied pleasantly.And the perfect good taste of her manner increased the favourable impression she had created.Indeed, that afternoon at Alderwood bade fair to see her and her sister exalted into the rank of heroines. It was plain that “taking up” the Derwents was to be the fashion in the neighbourhood, and to a less entirely single-minded and well-balanced nature than Blanche’s, the position would not have been without its risks. But, without cynicism, she appreciated the whole at its just value. The neglect and indifference and stupid exclusiveness shown to them during their first few lonely months in England had been a lesson not lost upon her, all the more that she had in no way exaggerated its causes.“There are lots of kind people in the world, I suppose,” she said to Stasy, whose head was much more in danger of being turned than her own. “But there are not many who go out of their way to make others happier, like dear Lady Hebe, or to help them practically, like kind Mrs Bracy; and the sort of attention that comes from ones being in any way prominent is really worth very little.”“I know,” Stasy agreed. “People are very like sheep; still, Blanche, the Enneslies are very nice girls. You are not going to advise mamma not to let me go to see them, when they asked me so very kindly, and not at all in a patronising way. You have always wanted me to have nice companions.”“Mamma can judge much better than I,” said Blanche. “I should not think of advising her one way or the other, though I hope she will let you go to spend a day with the Enneslies.”“Really,” said Stasy, “if it’s to be made such a fuss about, I’d much rather not go; if I were a poor apprentice, I should be allowed ‘a day out’ now and then, I suppose.”For Stasy’s temper just now was, to say the least, capricious. She was growing tired of the steady work required of her, now that the first blush of novelty and excitement had worn off. And this invitation to the Enneslies, a simple and informal affair, such as there could be no possible objection to for any girl of her age, was but the precursor of others, which, while they gratified Mrs Derwent to a certain extent, yet gave her cause for a great deal of consideration and some anxiety.“Stasy is too young,” she said to Blanche, “too young and excitable to go out, even in this ungrownup way, as much as would now be the case if we laid ourselves out for it. And for her it would not be the simple sort of thing that it is for girls in an ordinary position. Wherever we go, you would just at present be more or less picked out for notice and attention, and however kindly that may be meant, it would not be good for Stasy.”“Nor for me either, mamma,” said Blanche. “I dare say I should get very spoilt. I know I feel dreadfully lazy after these garden-parties and things of the kind, and disinclined to do anything at all.”“My darling,” said her mother, “I can scarcely imagine anything spoiling you. The spoiling would go deeper with Stasy than in the common sense of the word, for immediately people began to make less of her, she would be exaggeratedly embittered and cynical.”“We must save her from that,” said Blanche eagerly; “and it is just what would happen. Still, mamma, I think we should let her have all the change and recreation possible, for she does work so hard—harder than she needs. She throws herself so intensely into whatever she is doing. She gets as flushed and nervous over a hat as if her life depended upon it.”“It is even better when she is doing some lessons,” said Mrs Derwent, “and the classes will be beginning again soon. We must just take things as they come, Blanchie, and do our best.”So a great part of the invitations that were sent to them was courteously declined on the plea of want of time, none being accepted save such as it was desirable for Stasy to take part in, and which did not involve the expense of long drives or of much loss of working hours.One day early in October, “business”—to use Miss Halliday’s expression—“being rather slack just then,” Mrs Burgess made her appearance in a great state of excitement. She wanted some caps at once, as she was going off unexpectedly on a visit.It was late in the afternoon. Blanche had persuaded her mother to go out for a little stroll. Miss Halliday, in her corner of the shop, had, to confess the truth, been indulging in a little nap, and Stasy, some lace-frilling in her hands, which she was working at in a rather perfunctory way, glancing between times at a story of thrilling incident in a volume lent her by the Enneslies, was feeling unusually restful and contented.“I do hope no one else will come to-day,” she thought to herself. “It is nice to have a little breathing-time before the winter season begins, which Miss Halliday expects to be such a success.”Suddenly the shop door opened. Miss Halliday started up, looking and feeling very guilty.“Good-afternoon, Miss Halliday,” said Mrs Burgess, the new-comer. “Dear me, what a colour you are! I hope you’re not going to get apoplectic! Where is Miss Derwent? I must see her at once;” and she proceeded to explain the reason of her visit, and the urgency of her wants.Now, Mrs Burgess’s caps were even more marvellous works of art than Lady Harriot’s bonnets. They had indeed set Stasy’s teeth on edge to such an extent that Blanche had taken them altogether into her own hands, especially since some over-plain-speaking of Stasy’s on the subject had gone very near to deeply offending the doctor’s wife.No visitor could have been more unwelcome. What imp had suggested to Blanche the desertion of her post that afternoon?“I am sorry,” Miss Halliday replied, as she collected her scattered faculties, speaking with unusual dignity as she took in the sense of Mrs Burgess’s uncalled-for remark on her own appearance—“I am sorry, but Miss Derwent is not in at present. If you will kindly explain to me what you want, I will do my best, and I will tell Miss Derwent all particulars as soon as she comes back.”“No,” interposed Stasy, coming forward, before Mrs Burgess had time to reply. “You are tired, Miss Halliday: I know you had a bad headache this afternoon. Let me take Mrs Burgess’s orders;” and she darted a wrathful glance at the visitor. “Miss Halliday apoplectic indeed!” she thought inwardly; “shelooks far more so herself.”The doctor’s wife looked at Stasy rather dubiously. She had not the same faith in the young girl as in her elder sister, and at the bottom of her heart she was a little afraid of Stasy, whom she was given to describing to her own friends as an impertinent, stuck-up little monkey. But her friends did not always agree with her—that is to say, not those among them who had benefited by the girls cleverness, or been fascinated by the charm of manner Stasy could exert when it suited her.Furthermore, there was no choice. The caps must be had by a certain hour the next day, and as Mrs Burgess expected a guest to dine at her house that evening, she knew she would have no time to call again.“I’m sure Miss Anastasia’s taste will please you,” said Miss Halliday, full of gratitude to Stasy, and recalling dire failures of her own in time past, anent Mrs Burgess’s head-dresses.“Ah well,” said the lady, “you will do your best, I have no doubt, my dear, and I will explain exactly, so that you scarcely can go wrong. See here”—and she drew out a little parcel from the voluminous folds of her cloak—“I have brought one of my old caps as a pattern. This one was made by a French milliner in London, and was a great beauty in its day.”“Indeed,” said Stasy, as she took up the crumpled and faded article gingerly by the tips of her long delicate fingers. “That was a good while ago, I suppose, though of course fashions change quickly. You do not wish this to be copied exactly?”“You couldn’t do it if you tried,” said Mrs Burgess, already on the defensive, as she scented danger.“No,” replied Stasy, with apparent submissiveness, “I don’t suppose I could. But if you will be so good as to take off your bonnet and put this cap on, it will be a guide as to the size of your head and the fit. Then I can show you some lace and flowers, or whatever you prefer.”It took some little time for Mrs Burgess to divest herself of her bonnet and veil, as precautions had to be observed lest the remarkable addition to her somewhat scanty locks, which she called her “chignon,” should come off too. But at last the feat was safely accomplished, Stasy standing by and eyeing her the while with preternatural gravity.Then the cap was hoisted to its place and adjusted with the help of a hairpin or two, Stasy marching round and round her victim, so as to get a view from all sides, with no more regard for Mrs Burgess, who was hot and flurried, and very doubtful as to the behaviour of her chignon, than if the poor woman had been a hairdresser’s block.“Yes,” she said at last, composedly, “I quite see how it should be. Miss Halliday, please give Mrs Burgess her bonnet.—Now as to the lace you would like the caps to be made of, and the colours? I forget how many you said you wanted?”Mrs Burgess had made up her mind to have three. But something quite indescribable in Stasy’s tone aroused her spirit of contradiction.“I didn’t speak of more than one,” she said.“I beg your pardon,” said Stasy, with extreme deference. “I must have been mistaken. I thought you alluded tosomecaps.”“Well, and what if I did?” said Mrs Burgess, growing illogical as she waxed cross. “I came, hoping to see Miss Derwent, and there’s no saying how many I mightn’t have ordered if she had been in. But as it is, I don’t know but what I’d do better to wait till I get to London. I’m not at all sure that you’ll be able to manage it.”“That must be as you prefer,” said Stasy, preparing to replace the lid on a box of tempting-looking laces which had just caught Mrs Burgess’s eye. The girl knew quite well that the doctor’s wife did intend to order the caps, and in her heart she was beginning to feel some interest—the purely disinterested interest of the artist—in fabricating something which should for once show off her customer’s plain features to the best advantage; but she was determined to reduce Mrs Burgess in the first place to a proper attitude of humility and deference. Her air of profound indifference was perfect.“You may as well let me see those laces,” the doctor’s wife began again. “You needn’t be quite so short about it, Miss Stasy; it’s natural I should like to see what you can do. I won’t go back from havingonecap, and, if it’s all right, I’ll let you know about another.”Stasy looked at her calmly.“I must have misunderstood you again,” she said.“I thought you wanted them at once. I could promise two, or even three, to-morrow, if you decide upon them now, but not otherwise.”“And perhaps you will allow me to mention,” said Miss Halliday, coming forward, “that even if Miss Derwent had taken the order, ten to one but Miss Stasy would have carried it out. There is no one like her for quick work. She knows in an instant what’s the right thing to do, and her fingers are like a fairy’s.—Iwillsay it for you, my dear!”Mrs Burgess’s respect for Stasy rapidly increased, though the girls air of calm superiority made her try her best to hide the fact.“Ah well,” she said, in what she intended to be a tone of condescending good-nature, but which Stasy was far too quick not to interpret truly, “suppose we fix for two caps, one for morning and one for evening. Yes—those laces are very nice. You have some pretty flowers, I suppose?”“For the evening head-dress, you mean,” said Stasy. “These thick laces are for evening caps, and,of course, without flowers. I should propose a few loops of black velvet with this lace.”“Black velvet!” exclaimed Mrs Burgess. “That will be dull. I like a bit of colour in my cap. It sets off a dark dress, and Mr Burgess likes me best in dark things since I’ve got so stout.”“If you particularly wish it, you can have crimson velvet,” said Stasy; “but, of course, black would be the right thing.”“Well, I’ll leave it to you,” secretly convinced, but determined not to show it, was the reply, and, feeling herself triumphant, Stasy could afford to be generous. She drew out a box of beautiful French flowers of various shades, in which she allowed Mrs Burgess to revel with a view to the evening cap. And just as the doctor’s wife, having recovered her usual jollity, was impressing upon her that shemusthave the caps—must, whatever happened—to try on by eleven o’clock the next morning, the shop door softly opened.“Mind you,” repeated Mrs Burgess in her loud, rather rough tones, intending to be jocular, “you’ll have them back on your hands, Miss Stasy, unless you keep to the time.”The name “Stasy” fell on ears to which it had once been very familiar.“Stasy,” their owner repeated to himself inaudibly, as he stood unnoticed by the door. “Can that be my little girl’s child, and in such a position? Good heavens! how careless I have been.”
Blanche’s hope or expectation of meeting Miss Milward at Alderwood was not fulfilled. She had not, however, been there many minutes before she caught sight of Mrs Harrowby, the wife of the Pinnerton vicar, among the guests, and of her she made inquiry as to Rosy’s absence.
She was away, paying visits, for a few weeks, Mrs Harrowby replied; and something in her manner made Blanche feel that it was better to hazard no further inquiry, as she had been half-intending to do, about Lady Hebe herself. For some slight allusion to the East Moddersham family only drew forth the remark that the Marths were expected back some time in October.
“Either,” thought Blanche, “she doesn’t know how bad it is, or she has been asked not to speak of it.”
“The guild girls are getting on wonderfully well,” volunteered the vicars wife, “thanks to Adela Bracy and her cousin, though, in the first place, thanks to you. They miss you very much—indeed, we all do, at Pinnerton. Adela says you have been most kind in allowing her to apply to you about some little difficulties that occurred;” as was the case.
“I was so sorry to have to give it up,” said Blanche simply. “I only wish I could help Miss Bracy more.”
Just then Lady Harriot appeared with some of the numerous members of the Enneslie family in tow, to whom Miss Derwent was introduced with great propriety. Some irrepressible allusions to the bonnet followed on the good hostess’s part, which Blanche minded very much less than the Misses Enneslie minded them for her. They were nice girls, ready to be almost enthusiastic in their admiration of Blanche and of her sister, whom the youngest of them took under her wing, with the evident intention of making her enjoy herself. And the sight of Stasy’s brightening face was enough to make her sister’s spirits rise at once, more especially when she saw how, on her side, her mother was enjoying a tour of the grounds under old Mr Dunstan’s escort.
Other introductions followed, several of them to families whose names were not altogether unfamiliar to the girl, for as they sat working together, Miss Halliday was not above beguiling the time by a little local gossip of a harmless kind. And Lady Harriot’s good offices did not stop with “the county.” Blanche was trotted out, so to say, for the benefit of some of the Alderwood house-party, her hostess challenging their admiration, not only of thechef d’oeuvrereposing on her own head, but of the charming “confections,” which she described as to be seen in the High Street at Blissmore.
“You must really drive in with me one day, before you leave,” she would exclaim to some special crony of her own. “You would think yourself in Paris, you really would.—And yet none of your things have come from there as yet, have they, Miss Derwent?”
“None of those you saw, I think,” Blanche replied, “though I did write for a few models to a shop we used to get our own things from. The hat I have on is copied from one of them.”
“I was just thinking how pretty it was,” said the mother of some daughters, standing beside her. “I should extremely wish to have one like it for each of my girls, if we may call some day soon. That’s to say, if you don’t mind our copying yours, Miss Derwent. It isn’t as if we lived in this neighbourhood; we’re only here for a few days.”
“I shall be delighted to make them for you,” Blanche replied pleasantly.
And the perfect good taste of her manner increased the favourable impression she had created.
Indeed, that afternoon at Alderwood bade fair to see her and her sister exalted into the rank of heroines. It was plain that “taking up” the Derwents was to be the fashion in the neighbourhood, and to a less entirely single-minded and well-balanced nature than Blanche’s, the position would not have been without its risks. But, without cynicism, she appreciated the whole at its just value. The neglect and indifference and stupid exclusiveness shown to them during their first few lonely months in England had been a lesson not lost upon her, all the more that she had in no way exaggerated its causes.
“There are lots of kind people in the world, I suppose,” she said to Stasy, whose head was much more in danger of being turned than her own. “But there are not many who go out of their way to make others happier, like dear Lady Hebe, or to help them practically, like kind Mrs Bracy; and the sort of attention that comes from ones being in any way prominent is really worth very little.”
“I know,” Stasy agreed. “People are very like sheep; still, Blanche, the Enneslies are very nice girls. You are not going to advise mamma not to let me go to see them, when they asked me so very kindly, and not at all in a patronising way. You have always wanted me to have nice companions.”
“Mamma can judge much better than I,” said Blanche. “I should not think of advising her one way or the other, though I hope she will let you go to spend a day with the Enneslies.”
“Really,” said Stasy, “if it’s to be made such a fuss about, I’d much rather not go; if I were a poor apprentice, I should be allowed ‘a day out’ now and then, I suppose.”
For Stasy’s temper just now was, to say the least, capricious. She was growing tired of the steady work required of her, now that the first blush of novelty and excitement had worn off. And this invitation to the Enneslies, a simple and informal affair, such as there could be no possible objection to for any girl of her age, was but the precursor of others, which, while they gratified Mrs Derwent to a certain extent, yet gave her cause for a great deal of consideration and some anxiety.
“Stasy is too young,” she said to Blanche, “too young and excitable to go out, even in this ungrownup way, as much as would now be the case if we laid ourselves out for it. And for her it would not be the simple sort of thing that it is for girls in an ordinary position. Wherever we go, you would just at present be more or less picked out for notice and attention, and however kindly that may be meant, it would not be good for Stasy.”
“Nor for me either, mamma,” said Blanche. “I dare say I should get very spoilt. I know I feel dreadfully lazy after these garden-parties and things of the kind, and disinclined to do anything at all.”
“My darling,” said her mother, “I can scarcely imagine anything spoiling you. The spoiling would go deeper with Stasy than in the common sense of the word, for immediately people began to make less of her, she would be exaggeratedly embittered and cynical.”
“We must save her from that,” said Blanche eagerly; “and it is just what would happen. Still, mamma, I think we should let her have all the change and recreation possible, for she does work so hard—harder than she needs. She throws herself so intensely into whatever she is doing. She gets as flushed and nervous over a hat as if her life depended upon it.”
“It is even better when she is doing some lessons,” said Mrs Derwent, “and the classes will be beginning again soon. We must just take things as they come, Blanchie, and do our best.”
So a great part of the invitations that were sent to them was courteously declined on the plea of want of time, none being accepted save such as it was desirable for Stasy to take part in, and which did not involve the expense of long drives or of much loss of working hours.
One day early in October, “business”—to use Miss Halliday’s expression—“being rather slack just then,” Mrs Burgess made her appearance in a great state of excitement. She wanted some caps at once, as she was going off unexpectedly on a visit.
It was late in the afternoon. Blanche had persuaded her mother to go out for a little stroll. Miss Halliday, in her corner of the shop, had, to confess the truth, been indulging in a little nap, and Stasy, some lace-frilling in her hands, which she was working at in a rather perfunctory way, glancing between times at a story of thrilling incident in a volume lent her by the Enneslies, was feeling unusually restful and contented.
“I do hope no one else will come to-day,” she thought to herself. “It is nice to have a little breathing-time before the winter season begins, which Miss Halliday expects to be such a success.”
Suddenly the shop door opened. Miss Halliday started up, looking and feeling very guilty.
“Good-afternoon, Miss Halliday,” said Mrs Burgess, the new-comer. “Dear me, what a colour you are! I hope you’re not going to get apoplectic! Where is Miss Derwent? I must see her at once;” and she proceeded to explain the reason of her visit, and the urgency of her wants.
Now, Mrs Burgess’s caps were even more marvellous works of art than Lady Harriot’s bonnets. They had indeed set Stasy’s teeth on edge to such an extent that Blanche had taken them altogether into her own hands, especially since some over-plain-speaking of Stasy’s on the subject had gone very near to deeply offending the doctor’s wife.
No visitor could have been more unwelcome. What imp had suggested to Blanche the desertion of her post that afternoon?
“I am sorry,” Miss Halliday replied, as she collected her scattered faculties, speaking with unusual dignity as she took in the sense of Mrs Burgess’s uncalled-for remark on her own appearance—“I am sorry, but Miss Derwent is not in at present. If you will kindly explain to me what you want, I will do my best, and I will tell Miss Derwent all particulars as soon as she comes back.”
“No,” interposed Stasy, coming forward, before Mrs Burgess had time to reply. “You are tired, Miss Halliday: I know you had a bad headache this afternoon. Let me take Mrs Burgess’s orders;” and she darted a wrathful glance at the visitor. “Miss Halliday apoplectic indeed!” she thought inwardly; “shelooks far more so herself.”
The doctor’s wife looked at Stasy rather dubiously. She had not the same faith in the young girl as in her elder sister, and at the bottom of her heart she was a little afraid of Stasy, whom she was given to describing to her own friends as an impertinent, stuck-up little monkey. But her friends did not always agree with her—that is to say, not those among them who had benefited by the girls cleverness, or been fascinated by the charm of manner Stasy could exert when it suited her.
Furthermore, there was no choice. The caps must be had by a certain hour the next day, and as Mrs Burgess expected a guest to dine at her house that evening, she knew she would have no time to call again.
“I’m sure Miss Anastasia’s taste will please you,” said Miss Halliday, full of gratitude to Stasy, and recalling dire failures of her own in time past, anent Mrs Burgess’s head-dresses.
“Ah well,” said the lady, “you will do your best, I have no doubt, my dear, and I will explain exactly, so that you scarcely can go wrong. See here”—and she drew out a little parcel from the voluminous folds of her cloak—“I have brought one of my old caps as a pattern. This one was made by a French milliner in London, and was a great beauty in its day.”
“Indeed,” said Stasy, as she took up the crumpled and faded article gingerly by the tips of her long delicate fingers. “That was a good while ago, I suppose, though of course fashions change quickly. You do not wish this to be copied exactly?”
“You couldn’t do it if you tried,” said Mrs Burgess, already on the defensive, as she scented danger.
“No,” replied Stasy, with apparent submissiveness, “I don’t suppose I could. But if you will be so good as to take off your bonnet and put this cap on, it will be a guide as to the size of your head and the fit. Then I can show you some lace and flowers, or whatever you prefer.”
It took some little time for Mrs Burgess to divest herself of her bonnet and veil, as precautions had to be observed lest the remarkable addition to her somewhat scanty locks, which she called her “chignon,” should come off too. But at last the feat was safely accomplished, Stasy standing by and eyeing her the while with preternatural gravity.
Then the cap was hoisted to its place and adjusted with the help of a hairpin or two, Stasy marching round and round her victim, so as to get a view from all sides, with no more regard for Mrs Burgess, who was hot and flurried, and very doubtful as to the behaviour of her chignon, than if the poor woman had been a hairdresser’s block.
“Yes,” she said at last, composedly, “I quite see how it should be. Miss Halliday, please give Mrs Burgess her bonnet.—Now as to the lace you would like the caps to be made of, and the colours? I forget how many you said you wanted?”
Mrs Burgess had made up her mind to have three. But something quite indescribable in Stasy’s tone aroused her spirit of contradiction.
“I didn’t speak of more than one,” she said.
“I beg your pardon,” said Stasy, with extreme deference. “I must have been mistaken. I thought you alluded tosomecaps.”
“Well, and what if I did?” said Mrs Burgess, growing illogical as she waxed cross. “I came, hoping to see Miss Derwent, and there’s no saying how many I mightn’t have ordered if she had been in. But as it is, I don’t know but what I’d do better to wait till I get to London. I’m not at all sure that you’ll be able to manage it.”
“That must be as you prefer,” said Stasy, preparing to replace the lid on a box of tempting-looking laces which had just caught Mrs Burgess’s eye. The girl knew quite well that the doctor’s wife did intend to order the caps, and in her heart she was beginning to feel some interest—the purely disinterested interest of the artist—in fabricating something which should for once show off her customer’s plain features to the best advantage; but she was determined to reduce Mrs Burgess in the first place to a proper attitude of humility and deference. Her air of profound indifference was perfect.
“You may as well let me see those laces,” the doctor’s wife began again. “You needn’t be quite so short about it, Miss Stasy; it’s natural I should like to see what you can do. I won’t go back from havingonecap, and, if it’s all right, I’ll let you know about another.”
Stasy looked at her calmly.
“I must have misunderstood you again,” she said.
“I thought you wanted them at once. I could promise two, or even three, to-morrow, if you decide upon them now, but not otherwise.”
“And perhaps you will allow me to mention,” said Miss Halliday, coming forward, “that even if Miss Derwent had taken the order, ten to one but Miss Stasy would have carried it out. There is no one like her for quick work. She knows in an instant what’s the right thing to do, and her fingers are like a fairy’s.—Iwillsay it for you, my dear!”
Mrs Burgess’s respect for Stasy rapidly increased, though the girls air of calm superiority made her try her best to hide the fact.
“Ah well,” she said, in what she intended to be a tone of condescending good-nature, but which Stasy was far too quick not to interpret truly, “suppose we fix for two caps, one for morning and one for evening. Yes—those laces are very nice. You have some pretty flowers, I suppose?”
“For the evening head-dress, you mean,” said Stasy. “These thick laces are for evening caps, and,of course, without flowers. I should propose a few loops of black velvet with this lace.”
“Black velvet!” exclaimed Mrs Burgess. “That will be dull. I like a bit of colour in my cap. It sets off a dark dress, and Mr Burgess likes me best in dark things since I’ve got so stout.”
“If you particularly wish it, you can have crimson velvet,” said Stasy; “but, of course, black would be the right thing.”
“Well, I’ll leave it to you,” secretly convinced, but determined not to show it, was the reply, and, feeling herself triumphant, Stasy could afford to be generous. She drew out a box of beautiful French flowers of various shades, in which she allowed Mrs Burgess to revel with a view to the evening cap. And just as the doctor’s wife, having recovered her usual jollity, was impressing upon her that shemusthave the caps—must, whatever happened—to try on by eleven o’clock the next morning, the shop door softly opened.
“Mind you,” repeated Mrs Burgess in her loud, rather rough tones, intending to be jocular, “you’ll have them back on your hands, Miss Stasy, unless you keep to the time.”
The name “Stasy” fell on ears to which it had once been very familiar.
“Stasy,” their owner repeated to himself inaudibly, as he stood unnoticed by the door. “Can that be my little girl’s child, and in such a position? Good heavens! how careless I have been.”
Chapter Twenty Two.The Tall Old Gentleman.“Ahem!” followed by a slight cough, drew the attention of the three in the shop wards the door, whence the sound proceeded.There stood a tall, rather bent, grey-haired old gentleman. Miss Halliday stared at him dubiously, but Mrs Burgess started forward.“Good gracious!” she exclaimed. “Sir Adam! Who’d have thought it? I had no idea, sir, you were in the neighbourhood.”The new-comer glanced at her coldly.“Oh,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “Mrs Burgess, is it not? I hope your good husband is well—But”—and he stepped forward—“may I ask,” addressing Miss Halliday, “if it is the case that—that Mrs Derwent and her daughters are living here for the present?”“It is so,” said the milliner, with gentle and half-deprecating courtesy. “I am sorry.”—Then remembering Stasy’s presence, she turned to her. “This is Miss Anastasia. She can explain better. Perhaps, Miss Stasy, you will take the gentleman into the drawing-room till your mamma returns. I daresay she will not be long now.”Stasy put down on the counter a trail of roses which she was still holding, and laid her pretty little hand, with almost childlike confidence, in Sir Adam’s, already extended to meet it. The old man looked at her with a curiously mingled expression. Something about her, as well as her name, recalled her mother; still more, perhaps, her grandfather. For, though Stasy was at what is commonly called the “awkward age,” in her very unformed, half-wild gracefulness there was the suggestion of the underlying refinement and courtliness of bearing, for which Sir Adam’s old friend had been remarkable.“My dear child; my poor, dear child!” he exclaimed.Then the two disappeared—the young girl’s hand still held firmly in the old man’s grasp—through the door at the end of the shop, which led into the Derwents’ own quarters, to Miss Halliday’s intense satisfaction, and Mrs Burgess’s no less profound discomfiture and amazement.“Dear, dear!” she ejaculated. “What’s going to happen now?” and she turned to Miss Halliday.“I don’t understand you, ma’am,” she said quietly.“Why, it’s plain to see what I mean,” returned the other. “Old Sir Adam Nigel treating Stasy Derwent as if she were his grand-daughter! How does he know anything about them?”“She is not that, certainly,” said Miss Halliday, referring to the first part of Mrs Burgess’s speech, “but she is the grand-daughter of his very oldest and dearest friend, Mr Fenning—the Honourable and Reverend—and of his wife, Lady Anastasia Bourne, to give her maiden name,” rolling out the words with exquisite enjoyment. “If you’ll excuse me, Mrs Burgess,” she continued, “I think, from the first, you’ve just a little mistaken the position of my dear ladies, if I may make bold to call them so.”For a worm will turn, and all Miss Halliday’s timidity vanished in indignation, hitherto repressed, at the behaviour of the doctor’s wife.“Bless me!” exclaimed Mrs Burgess, “how was I to know? But what about my caps?”“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 Adameverything.”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.”“ButIdid,” 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’stête-à-têteperfectly 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 couldpossiblybe,” 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’sfiancéehaving 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 herfiancé!”“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.“Youhave 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 himwouldbe 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.”“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.
“Ahem!” followed by a slight cough, drew the attention of the three in the shop wards the door, whence the sound proceeded.
There stood a tall, rather bent, grey-haired old gentleman. Miss Halliday stared at him dubiously, but Mrs Burgess started forward.
“Good gracious!” she exclaimed. “Sir Adam! Who’d have thought it? I had no idea, sir, you were in the neighbourhood.”
The new-comer glanced at her coldly.
“Oh,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “Mrs Burgess, is it not? I hope your good husband is well—But”—and he stepped forward—“may I ask,” addressing Miss Halliday, “if it is the case that—that Mrs Derwent and her daughters are living here for the present?”
“It is so,” said the milliner, with gentle and half-deprecating courtesy. “I am sorry.”—Then remembering Stasy’s presence, she turned to her. “This is Miss Anastasia. She can explain better. Perhaps, Miss Stasy, you will take the gentleman into the drawing-room till your mamma returns. I daresay she will not be long now.”
Stasy put down on the counter a trail of roses which she was still holding, and laid her pretty little hand, with almost childlike confidence, in Sir Adam’s, already extended to meet it. The old man looked at her with a curiously mingled expression. Something about her, as well as her name, recalled her mother; still more, perhaps, her grandfather. For, though Stasy was at what is commonly called the “awkward age,” in her very unformed, half-wild gracefulness there was the suggestion of the underlying refinement and courtliness of bearing, for which Sir Adam’s old friend had been remarkable.
“My dear child; my poor, dear child!” he exclaimed.
Then the two disappeared—the young girl’s hand still held firmly in the old man’s grasp—through the door at the end of the shop, which led into the Derwents’ own quarters, to Miss Halliday’s intense satisfaction, and Mrs Burgess’s no less profound discomfiture and amazement.
“Dear, dear!” she ejaculated. “What’s going to happen now?” and she turned to Miss Halliday.
“I don’t understand you, ma’am,” she said quietly.
“Why, it’s plain to see what I mean,” returned the other. “Old Sir Adam Nigel treating Stasy Derwent as if she were his grand-daughter! How does he know anything about them?”
“She is not that, certainly,” said Miss Halliday, referring to the first part of Mrs Burgess’s speech, “but she is the grand-daughter of his very oldest and dearest friend, Mr Fenning—the Honourable and Reverend—and of his wife, Lady Anastasia Bourne, to give her maiden name,” rolling out the words with exquisite enjoyment. “If you’ll excuse me, Mrs Burgess,” she continued, “I think, from the first, you’ve just a little mistaken the position of my dear ladies, if I may make bold to call them so.”
For a worm will turn, and all Miss Halliday’s timidity vanished in indignation, hitherto repressed, at the behaviour of the doctor’s wife.
“Bless me!” exclaimed Mrs Burgess, “how was I to know? But what about my caps?”
“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 Adameverything.”
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.”
“ButIdid,” 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’stête-à-têteperfectly 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 couldpossiblybe,” 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’sfiancéehaving 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 herfiancé!”
“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.
“Youhave 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 himwouldbe 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.”
“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.