mortification, partly of vexation with herself. And instantly, as was
always the case where Stasy was concerned, the hearts of her mother and
sister softened to her again.
"My dear child, how you do rush at conclusions!" Mrs Derwent exclaimed.
"Because we have come across two commonplace, perhaps I must say
vulgar-minded women, you make up your mind that English society is
composed of such people."
"And," Blanche added eagerly, "did you notice, mamma, how even Lady
Harriot's dull face lighted up when she spoke of Lady Hebe? Mamma, I am
perfectly certain that girl is as good as she is charming. It refreshes
me merely to think of her face--Stasy, I wish you had seen her better."
"I did see her well enough. I thought she was lovely, and she looked as
if she'd never had a trouble in her life. Oh, I daresay there are some
nice people in England, but I don't believe _we_ shall know any of
them," said Stasy very lugubriously.
The next morning threw more light on the visit of the day before, for it
brought a letter from Mrs Lilford. Mrs Derwent, guessing who was the
writer, opened it with interest and some curiosity, but she had not read
far before she startled her daughters with a sudden exclamation.
"What is it, mamma?" said Blanche.
"It is from Mrs Lilford, Sir Adam Nigel's niece," she said; "and, fancy,
Blanchie--I am so delighted--he is _not_ dead. Dear old Sir Adam, I
mean. Listen. I may be hearing from him before very long."
And she went on to read aloud from the letter.
"I am glad to say that you have been misinformed about my uncle. Though
he left Alderwood several years ago, at which time he gave it up to me,
he is still living. His health would not stand English winters, and he
spends eight or nine months of the year in Algeria. When I write to him
next, I will tell him of your return to England. In the meantime I have
asked my friend and tenant, Lady Harriot Dunstan, to call upon you, and
I have no doubt she will be glad to be of any little neighbourly service
in her power." Then followed Sir Adam Nigel's address, and a few
sufficiently cordial words. But the tone of the whole was barely
"friendly," though ladylike and courteous.
Mrs Derwent, however, was too pleased with the news of Sir Adam to think
much of anything else.
"I am so delighted," she repeated--"so glad to think I shall see him
again."
Blanche took up the letter, and toyed with it in her fingers. The
distant Sir Adam seemed to her and Stasy of less importance than matters
nearer at hand. Her silence caught her mother's attention.
"It is a nice letter," Mrs Derwent said.
"Oh yes," said Blanche; "but she doesn't seem very interested in us,
mamma. And then, of course, as she has let Alderwood, she is not going
to live here; so perhaps it doesn't very much matter. But I wish that
Lady Harriot had been nicer."
Mrs Derwent's face lost its joyous expression.
"I wish Sir Adam were going to be at Alderwood again," she said with a
little sigh. "_That_ would have made all the difference. Mrs Lilford
did not know me well. She was four or five years older, and she married
and went to India before I was grown up. She only remembers me as a
child more or less. But now I can write to Sir Adam himself, and he
will be sure to ask some old friends to come to see us."
And that very day she did so.
But the result was not what she had hoped. A few thoroughly kind words
from her old friend came in response in the course of a week or two,
hoping to see her and her children on his return to England the
following spring, but evidently not "taking in" the Derwents' present
loneliness. "I hear from Amy Lilford that she has asked her tenants to
look after you a little," he said. "I don't know them personally, but
you will like to have the run of the old place again."
And Mrs Derwent could not make up her mind to trouble him further. "Men
hate writing any letters that are not business ones," she said to
Blanche. "We must just wait till he comes back in the spring, and make
ourselves as happy as we can till then; though, of course, I hope some
people will call on us as soon as we are settled. The Marths at East
Moddersham could scarcely do less."
To some little extent her expectations were fulfilled. The wife of the
vicar of Blissmore called. The vicar was a younger son of the important
Enneslie family, enjoying the living in his father's gift after
old-fashioned orthodox fashion, and Mrs Enneslie was a conscientious
"caller" on all her husbands parishioners. She had perception enough to
discern the Derwents' refinement and superiority at a glance, but she
was a very busy woman, with experience enough to know that to be
accepted by the "County," much more than these qualities was demanded.
And she contented herself with such kindly attentions to the strangers
as lay in her own power. She did a little more. She spoke of them to
her brother, the Pinnerton Green parson, who promised that his wife
should look them up as soon as they came under his clerical wing.
"They seem nice girls," she said, with perhaps some kindly meant
diplomacy. "It would be good for them to do a little Sunday-schooling
or something of that kind."
So the weeks passed, bringing with them the exasperating delays which
every one in the agonies of house changing thinks peculiar to one's own
case; and Christmas came and went before the Derwents could even name a
time with any certainty for taking possession of their new home. It was
a dull Christmas. Not that, with their French experience, the young
people were accustomed to Yule-tide joviality; but they had heard so
much about it--had pictured to themselves the delights of an overflowing
country-house, the glories of a real English Christmas, as their mother
had so often from their earliest years described it to them.
And the reality--Miss Halliday's best sitting-room, with some sprigs of
holly, a miniature (though far from badly made) plum-pudding, no
presents or felicitations except those they gave each other!
"Another of my illusions gone," said Stasy, with half-comical pathos,
which drew forth a warning whisper from Blanche of "Don't, Stasy. It
worries mamma," and aloud the reminder:
"Everything will be quite different when we are in our own house, you
silly girl."
And when at last the own house did come, and the pleasant stage began of
making the rooms home-like and pretty with the old friends so long
immured in packing cases, and the new dainty trifles picked up in
London, in spite of the fogs, for a short time they were all very busy,
and perfectly happy--satisfied that the lonely half-homesick feeling had
only been a passing experience.
"I am really glad not to have made new friends till now," said Mrs
Derwent. "It does look so different here, though we have been very
comfortable at Miss Halliday's, and she has been most good to us."
"Yes," Blanche agreed; "and I think we should make up our minds to _be_
happy here, whether we know many nice people or not, mamma. The only
thing I really care about is a little good companionship for Stasy."
"She must not make friends with any girls beneath her--as to that I am
determined," said Mrs Derwent.
"Far better have none. Not that anything could make _her_ common, but
it would be bad for her to feel herself the superior; and I can picture
her queening it over others, and then making fun of them and their homes
and ways. She has such a sense of the ridiculous. No; Stasy needs to
be with those she can look up to. I am sure, Blanche, it is better not
to think of her going to that day-school at Blissmore."
For Stasy was only sixteen, and the question of her studies was still a
question. At Blissmore, under the shadow of the now important public
school for boys, various minor institutions for girls were springing up,
all, as might have been expected, of a rather mixed class, though the
teaching in most was good.
And Stasy, for her part, would have thought it "great fun" to go to
school for a year or so.
The matter was compromised by arrangements being made for her having
private lessons at home on certain days of the week, and joining one or
two classes at the best girls' school at Blissmore on others, to which
she could be escorted by Aline when she took little Herty to his
day-school.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
OLD SCENES.
By March the Derwents felt quite at home in their new abode; in one
sense, almost too much so. The excitement of settling had sobered down;
the housekeeping arrangements were completed, and promising to work
smoothly. For Mrs Derwent had profited by her twenty years of French
life in becoming a most capable and practical housewife, and being
naturally quick and able to adapt herself, she soon mastered the little
difficulties consequent on the very different ideas as to material
questions of her own and her adopted country.
So that, in point of fact, time was in danger of hanging rather heavily
on their hands; there was really so little to do!
Their peculiar position cut them off from many of the occupations with
which most of us nowadays are only too heavily burdened. They had few
letters to write, for Frenchwomen are not great correspondents--in the
provinces, at least--and when the Derwents left Bordeaux, their old
friends there extracted no promises of "writing very often--very, very
often."
"Notes," of course, which in London seem to use up hours of each day,
there was never any occasion for. They had no calls to pay, beyond a
rare one at the vicarage; no visitors to receive. For the Pinnerton
Green folk had not followed suit, as the Derwents had feared, after Mrs
Burgess's invasion. Nothing had been heard of Mrs Wandle, and--probably
through some breath of the great Lady Harriot Dunstan's visit, and Mrs
Enneslie's introduction of the new-comers to her relations at Pinnerton
Vicarage--the immediate neighbours had held back: the "butchers and
bakers and candlestick-makers" had left them in peace. Mrs Burgess
having been called away to a sick sister or niece early in the winter,
and not yet having returned, even the excitement of watching her tactics
had been wanting.
In short, the Derwents, socially speaking, were very distinctly in the
position, to use a homely old saying, of "falling between two stools."
And though Stasy was the least to be pitied, for her lessons kept her
pretty fairly busy, and she managed to find food for amusement and
material for mimicry among her class companions--some of whom, too, she
really liked--at Mrs Maxton's school, she was the readiest to grumble.
"What is the use of making the house pretty when there is no one to see
it?" she said to her sister one afternoon, when the two had been
employing themselves in hunting for early violets and primroses in the
woods, with which to adorn the library, their favourite sitting-room.
There were not many of these spring treasures as yet, for the season was
a late one, but they were laden with other spoil, as lovely in its way--
great trails of ivy and bunches of withered or half-withered leaves of
every shade, from golden brown to crimson, which in sheltered nooks were
still to be found arrested in their beautiful decay.
"What is the use of making the house pretty when there is never any one
to see it?" Stasy repeated, as she flicked away an unsightly twig from
the quaint posy she was carrying, for Blanche had not at once replied.
"There is always use in making one's home as pretty as possible. There
are ourselves to see it, and the--the thing itself," replied Blanche a
little vaguely.
"What do you mean by the thing itself?" Stasy demanded.
"The being pretty, or the trying to be--the aiming at beauty, I suppose,
I mean," said Blanche. "Can't you imagine a painter giving years to a
beautiful picture, even though he knew no one would ever see it but
himself? or a musician composing music no one would ever hear?"
"No," said Stasy, "I can't. That sort of thing is flights above me,
Blanchie. I like human beings about me--lots of them; they generally
interest me, and often amuse me. I like a good many, and I am quite
ready to love _some_. I want sympathy and life, and--and--well,
perhaps, a little admiration. And I do think it's too horribly dull
here; at least, I'm afraid it's going to be. I would rather leave off
being at all grand, and get some fun out of the Wandles, and the
Beltons, and all the rest of them."
"Mamma is still looking forward to Sir Adam's return in the spring--
well, soon, it should be now. It _is_ spring already," said Blanche,
rather at a loss, as she often was, how to reply to Stasy's outburst.
"I don't believe he'll come to see us; or if he does, I don't suppose it
would do us much good. He has been away so long, and is no use to the
neighbourhood; and I believe that's all that most people care about,"
said Stasy cynically. "These families round about here live their own
lives and have their own circles. They'll all be going up to London
directly, I suppose, for the season. They don't want us, or care about
quiet, not very rich, people like us. England isn't a bit like what I
thought it would be."
"We can't quite judge yet," said Blanche. "And--I am sure you are too
sweeping, Stasy. Mamma may have been too sanguine, and have seen things
too much through rose-coloured spectacles, but she cannot be altogether
mistaken in her pleasant remembrances of her old friends--the `best'
people--among whom she lived."
"Would you give Lady Harriot Dunstan as a specimen?" said Stasy
snappishly.
"No; she would be a common-minded, inferior woman in _any_ class," said
Blanche. "I believe that is the truth of it all: there are refined and
charming natures to be found in every class, and there are the
opposite."
"Well, then, let us hunt up a few among the Blissmore _bourgeoisie_, and
content ourselves with them," said Stasy.
"No," said Blanche again. "It is one's duty to live in one's own class
unless one is plainly shown it is necessary to leave it. And that
reminds me, speaking of Lady Harriot, I really think mamma should call
there, now we are settled. She did not _mean_ to be impertinent, we
must remember."
"_I_ don't need to go, as I'm not out," said Stasy. "Besides, one of us
would be enough in any case. I would have liked to see Alderwood,
though, but I _won't_ go the way those Blissmore girls go, on a `show'
day--`open to the public'--faugh!" with great disgust.
Blanche could not help laughing.
"How consistent you are," she said.--"Well, Herty," as at that moment
her little brother came flying out of their own gate to meet them, "why
didn't you come with us to the woods to gather leaves and hunt for
violets?"
"I meant to come," said Herty regretfully, "but when I'd finished my
lessons for Monday, you were gone, and I couldn't see you, though I ran
as far down the road as I could. Oh, Blanchie," he went on, "I met such
a nice lady riding. She saw I was looking up and down, and she stopped
her horse and spoke to me. I asked her if she'd seen two girls like you
and Stasy, and she said no, but if she did, she'd tell you I was looking
for you. She said she knew you by sight, and she hoped we liked living
at Pinnerton."
"Was it a young lady?" asked Blanche.
"Yes," said the boy, "and she came out of those big gates, nearly
opposite the lane, you know. She had a nice face, not as pretty as
_yours_, Blanchie, but about as pretty as--" And he glanced at his
younger sister dubiously. "No, she wasn't like Stasy. She had a more
shiny face."
"Thank you," said Stasy. "Perhaps she uses Pears's soap, which I
_don't_."
Herty looked puzzled.
"That's not what I mean," he said. "It was a pretty, shiny way--out of
her eyes, too. Not _soapy_. You are silly, Stasy."
"I know," said Blanche with interest, and not sorry to divert the
quarrel, which she saw impending between the two--"I know who it was.
It must have been the girl with the happy face--Lady Hebe. That was
what Herty was trying to describe. You might say `sunshiny,' instead of
`shiny,' Herty."
"Yes, that's what I meant," he said. "Her face smiled all over."
"And did you say we _did_ like Pinnerton?" inquired Stasy with some
eagerness.
"I said I did, except when I'd too many lessons; and I said Blanchie
did, but Stasy said it was very dull."
Stasy looked uncertain whether to be pleased or vexed.
"What did she say?" she asked.
"She said it wasn't so bright here as in France, and she'd been there
all this time since Christmas, and then she nodded and trotted away,"
was Herty's reply.
"I thought she must be away," said Blanche.
"Why--because she has not called upon us?" said Stasy, with what was
meant for extreme irony.
"No," said Blanche quietly. "She could not call unless her friends did,
of course, and I don't think the Marths are old acquaintances of
mamma's. But I had a feeling that she was away. We should have met
her, riding or walking about."
"I don't suppose she ever walks," said Stasy.
"Nonsense, Stasy! English girls are not like that. And don't you
remember Mrs Harrowby, the vicar's wife, saying the other day that some
of the girls in the neighbourhood were very good about the poor people,
but that, unluckily, the most influential were seldom here. It was when
she was telling us about the classes she wants to get up for some of the
older girls."
"No," said Stasy, "I didn't pay attention. I suppose I thought she was
speaking of the Miss Wandles and the Miss Beltons, and all the other
Miss Somebodies or Nobodies. I don't care about poor people: it's not
my line--excepting making a _quete_. I used to like doing that when I
was a little girl."
Blanche said nothing. She had considerable experience of Stasy's
contrariness.
But a certain pleasurable though vague sense of anticipation had made
its way into her mind since hearing of Herty's meeting with Lady Hebe.
"I do feel so _sure_ she is good and unselfish and thoughtful for
others," she said to herself. "She may not have much in her power, but
I feel as if she would like to be kind to us. I don't care so much for
myself, of course, though it _would_ be nice to know her; but it is for
Stasy. I am so afraid of the friends she may make if she has not nice
ones."
And Blanche's face looked anxious and perturbed as they re-entered their
own little domain, laden with their pretty spoils.
Two things happened in the course of the next few days, which somewhat
broke the monotony of the Derwents' daily life. The first was a drive
to Alderwood, to return Lady Harriot's call. Blanche impressed upon her
mother that whether the visit was expected of them or not, it was due to
their own dignity to make it, notwithstanding the unfavourable
impression that Mrs Lilford's tenant had left with them.
"If we don't call, she will think us fair game for patronising and
condescending to. Of course we must, and we should have done so
before."
"I have kept hoping to hear again from Sir Adam or Mrs Lilford," said
Mrs Derwent. "I should much have preferred not to meet Lady Harriot
till she understood better about us."
"She will probably ring the bell and tell the housekeeper to show us the
pictures," said Stasy. "_You_, not `us,' I should say, for, of course,
I needn't go."
"You can go with us for the drive and wait in the fly outside," said
Blanche.
For though they had been talking of a pony-carriage "in the spring,"
they had not yet heard of a suitable steed; and on the whole, perhaps
Mrs Derwent was not sorry to defer for a little any avoidable expense,
the installation at Pinnerton Lodge having cost, as is always the case
in such matters, much more than she had anticipated.
Stasy received her sister's proposal with a laugh. "All right," she
said. "Anything for a spree. I'll come."
Something in her tone slightly grated on Blanche.
"Stasy," she said, "I do hope even the little you see of those girls at
Mrs Maxton's is not doing you any harm. You--you seem to be catching up
their expressions."
"What b--nonsense!" said Stasy, quickly substituting the second word,
though she could not help reddening a little. "Mamma, you know better
than Blanche. Is there anything unladylike in `all right,' or `a
spree?'"
"I can scarcely say, my dear," said her mother. "But I know what your
sister means. It is the _tone_ we--"
Stasy ran across the room and stopped her mother saying more, by a kiss.
"Don't be afraid," she said. "I'm not going to get vulgar and horrid.
And some of those girls are really quite nice, mamma. I'll tell you
what--I wish you'd let me invite one or two here one afternoon to tea.
Oh, might I? It would be so nice. I'd like them to see you and
Blanchie, and then you can judge for yourselves if the ones I bring
aren't quite ladylike. It is so dull sometimes, mamma. Do say I may."
"I will think about it, dear," said Mrs Derwent. "It is not that I have
any prejudice against the girls. I daresay there are among them truly
refined and charming natures, but I do not want to open a visiting
acquaintance in Blissmore. I did not bring you to live in England to
fall into a lower social position than is naturally ours. It was not
for that we left our dear old home at Bordeaux."
There was a slight catch in the mother's voice as she said the last
words, that made both her daughters look at her anxiously.
"Mamma dear," whispered Stasy, "do you sometimes wish we _hadn't_ left
it?"
"I can't say, dear. I did it for the best, and we must be patient
still," she replied.
But when the sisters were alone, Stasy confided to Blanche that she
thought "mamma" just a trifle prejudiced and narrow-minded.
"Si on n'a pas ce qu'on aime," she said in her half-laughing,
half-grumbling way, "_il faut aimer ce qu'on a_. If we can't have grand
friends, much better content ourselves with common ones. We are not put
into the world to live alone: anything is better than dullness."
"I am not so sure of that," said Blanche.
The next day they went to call at Alderwood.
It was a real spring afternoon, and though the air had still a touch of
keenness in it, it was full of the exhilaration which is the essential
charm of the childhood of Nature's year. In spite of some anticipatory
shivers, Stasy persuaded her mother and Blanche to have the carriage
open, filling it with shawls and rugs, "in case _they_ should be cold,"
though as regarded herself, she felt sure that would be impossible.
The first part of the road was familiar to them, as they had to go some
considerable part of the way to Blissmore before reaching the
cross-country route to Alderwood, which lay on the other side of the
town. But once they had turned in the Alderwood direction, a lovely
view was before them, and the girls burst into expressions of pleasure;
while to their mother, every cottage, every milestone almost, recalled
her happy youth.
"I am so glad to find I remember it all so well," she said. "It makes
me feel more at home than I have done yet. Is it not really a charming
country? I wish we could have found a house near Alderwood."
"_I_ don't," whispered Stasy, with a private grimace for Blanche's
benefit.
When they reached the lodge gates and were driving slowly up the avenue,
Mrs Derwent became perfectly silent, and her daughters respected her
mingled feelings. For Alderwood in the old days, as they knew, had been
almost as much "home" to her as the pretty Fotherley vicarage.
The anticipation of an interview with Lady Harriot Dunstan was a safe
tonic against emotion or overmuch sentiment. And on the servant's reply
that her ladyship was at home, it was with a perfectly calm and
dignified demeanour that Mrs Derwent, followed by Blanche, got out of
the fly and made her way up the stone steps and across the tiled hall to
the inner vestibule, whence opened the drawing-rooms and morning-room,
all of which she knew so well. She felt as if in a dream: every
footfall seemed to carry her back a quarter of a century. But for a
glance at the grave face of the fair, beautiful girl beside her, she
could have fancied all the events of the intervening years to have been
imaginary, and herself again "Stasy Fenning," running in with some
message from "papa" to her kindly godfather!
CHAPTER NINE.
AFTERNOON MEETINGS.
When the door was thrown open, and the butler's sonorous tones
announcing Mrs and Miss Derwent made the occupants of the room turn
round, and the short, stout figure of their hostess came waddling
towards all illusion was dispelled, and with a little sigh Blanche's
mother came back to the very different present.