to you? You were such near neighbours. Josephine is a peculiar woman,
but there's good in her."
"There is in nearly every one, it seems to me," answered Mrs Derwent
with a smile. "Lady Marth had no special reasons for noticing us."
"That means she was--ah well, the very reverse of what she might have
been," he said, with a touch of severity. "However--"
"But Lady Hebe was all she could _possibly_ be," said Blanche quickly.
"We felt drawn to her from the very first."
"That's right," said Sir Adam, and with the words he was gone.
They were but a small party at East Moddersham at dinner that day. A
few of Sir Adam's particular friends, got together to welcome him back
again, even if but for a short time, among them.
He drove over with Lady Harriot and her husband, to whom had not been
confided the whole gravity of poor Hebe's troubles. And the old lady
chattered away rather aggravatingly as to reports which had reached her
of Norman Milward's _fiancee_ having grown hypochondriacal and fanciful.
"The poor fellow's been in Norway for ever so long," she said, "because
she wouldn't agree to fixing the time for their marriage. Aunt Grace
was with her about then, but even she couldn't make her hear reason.
It's not what I'd have expected of Hebe, I must say."
"Did Aunt Grace tell you so herself?" inquired Sir Adam drily.
"Well, no, not exactly," Lady Harriot allowed. "It was something I
heard in London about Hebe's being so changed, and poor Norman looking
so ill. It must have been true, for our Archie has been away with him
all this time. I do hope he'll be back soon, for he's so useful in the
autumn."
"Norman Milward has come back," said Sir Adam. "He was expected at East
Moddersham to-day, so you will hear all about your nephew from him, and
I can take upon myself to set your mind at rest as to any
misunderstanding between Hebe and her _fiance_!"
"I'm glad to hear it, I'm sure," said Lady Harriot. "By-the-bye, Sir
Adam," she went on, "I think you might do your friends the Derwents a
good turn by speaking of them to Josephine Marth. She's almost the only
person about here now who hasn't taken them up."
Sir Adam winced slightly at the expression.
"_You_ have been very kind to them from the first, Lady Harriot," he
said. "I shall always feel grateful to you for it. But as to Lady
Marth--no, I don't care to bespeak her good offices, as she had not the
sense or kind-heartedness to show them any civility before."
Almost as he finished speaking, the carriage drew up at the hall door,
and no more was said.
As they entered the drawing-room, Lady Harriot a little in advance of
her husband and her guest, she gave a sudden cry of astonishment.
"Archie!" she exclaimed. "You here, my dear boy! and not with us at
Alderwood! I didn't even know you were back in England."
"Nor did I myself, auntie, till I found myself in London yesterday
morning," the young man replied. "I came down here with Norman to-day,
meaning to look you up to-morrow."
"That's right," said Lady Harriot, but there was no time just then for
further explanations, as Lady Marth came forward.
But it struck Sir Adam, as he shook hands cordially with the younger Mr
Dunstan, that there was something forced in his tone and manner.
"Archie Dunstan's spirits failing him _would_ be something new," thought
the old man. "I must have my wits about me," and a moment or two later
he found an opportunity of saying a few words without risk of their
being overheard.
"I'm particularly glad to meet you to-night, Dunstan," he said. "I have
never thanked you for looking up my old friends the Derwents again, and
giving them my message. But for you, I should have felt even more
ashamed of myself, for my carelessness towards them, than I do. I have
been a selfish, self-absorbed old man, not worth calling a friend."
"You have seen them, then," said Archie eagerly.
"Yes, this afternoon. It has been almost more than I could stand to see
them where and as they are, and to think how I might have saved it all I
shall never forgive myself. Those two girls are perfectly charming,
worthy to be their mother's daughters."
A new light seemed to come into Archies face, though he only murmured
some half-inaudible words of agreement.
"At least," he thought unselfishly, "this looks like an end of that
hateful life for her, and once clear of that, who knows what
opportunities might turn up? She would surely look on things
differently."
"And how is Hebe?" asked Sir Adam, still in a low voice.
"Better, really better," replied Archie. "I saw her a few minutes ago,
and she is hoping to see you after dinner. They will have to be awfully
careful of her for some time; but still, Norman is ever so much
happier."
"Poor dear child!" said Sir Adam, and then he found himself told off to
conduct his hostess to the dining-room.
He would have preferred another companion, for his feelings towards Lady
Marth were not of the most cordial. They had some common ground,
however, in the good hopes, now sanctioned, of Lady Hebe's recovery; and
in the interest of discussing these, the first part of the dinner passed
more to Sir Adam's satisfaction than he had anticipated.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
AT EAST MODDERSHAM.
"It was all so touching," said Lady Marth. "I cannot tell you how
patient Hebe was, thinking of every one more than of herself. I don't
know any one else who would have behaved so beautifully through such a
trial."
And her somewhat hard though handsome features softened as she spoke,
and her dark eyes looked almost as if there were tears in them.
Sir Adam, on his side, felt that he had perhaps been judging her too
sharply.
"Of course," he thought to himself, "but for their being friends of my
own, I would never have known or cared whether she was kind to the
Derwents or not. And I suppose one should try not to be personal;
still--"
At that moment a slight pause in the conversation at the other end of
the table allowed Lady Harriot's rather harsh, unmodulated voice to be
heard very distinctly. She was speaking to a lady seated opposite to
her, a visitor at East Moddersham, and not a resident in the
neighbourhood.
"Yes," she said, "you positively must get Lady Marth to drive you into
Blissmore to see their things. I have been getting them all the custom
I could, and I do think, now they have made a good start, they may get
on well, poor things."
"I'll make a point of giving them an order," the lady replied
good-naturedly. "One does feel so sorry for them."
Sir Adam was an old man, and a man of the world; but his face reddened
perceptibly.
"Excuse me, Lady Harriot," he said very clearly--and somehow every one
stopped speaking to listen--"If you are alluding to Mrs Derwent and her
daughters, I must not leave any misapprehension about them. There will
soon be no need for any one to patronise them, however kind the motive.
Their being in their present position has been the result of a complete
misapprehension, for which, I must confess, I am myself to blame."
Lady Harriot stared.
"My dear Sir Adam," she said, "why didn't you tell me so before?"
But Sir Adam had already turned to Lady Marth, and did not seem to hear
the question. Lady Harriot nodded across the table confidentially.
"Never mind," she said in a low voice. "Be sure you go to see their
things, all the same."
Lady Marth had looked up in astonishment at Sir Adam's speech.
"Are you talking of some people who took a house on Pinnerton Green and
have left it again already?" she said. "I had no idea they were friends
of _yours_! I remember Hebe rather took up the daughters in connection
with that guild of hers that she's so enthusiastic about."
Sir Adam's face was grave and his tone very cold as he replied.
"You cannot possibly have _met_ them," he said, "or your discrimination
would have shown you that, whether friends of mine or not, they are very
different from what you have evidently imagined them."
"Why, you seem quite vexed with me," said Lady Marth, trying to carry it
off lightly. "How can I be expected to know all about the good people
on the Green, or to have guessed by instinct that the Derwents had
anything to do with you?"
"Lady Hebe found out enough to make her show them all the kindness in
her power," he replied. "Lady Harriot called on them, poor dear soul,
meaning to do her best, and Mrs Harrowby surely mentioned them to you?"
"Perhaps she did," replied Lady Marth carelessly; "but the vicar's wife,
you know, Sir Adam, doesn't count in that way. It's her role, or she
thinks it is, to ignore all class distinctions."
"In this case there were none to ignore," said Sir Adam, still more
frigidly.
"I don't say there were," she replied. "Of course not with friends of
yours. But how was I to know that? Now, you're not to be vexed with
me, for you've really no cause to be." But as she said this, a certain
afternoon in the vicarage drawing-room recurred to her memory--a
beautiful, fair-haired girl, standing near her, a faint flush rising to
her face as she--Lady Marth--drew herself back with words, to say the
least, neither courteous nor amiable. Her tone to Sir Adam softened
still more. "Of course," she continued, "I shall be more than delighted
to pay any attention in my power to Mrs Derwent--that is to say, if you
wish it."
"Thank you," he answered, gratified, in spite of himself, by her evident
sincerity. "I will tell you more about them some other time. I may see
Hebe after dinner, may I not?" he went on. "Archie said something about
her wishing it."
"Oh yes," replied Lady Marth. "She is counting upon it, I know. If you
will follow us into the drawing-room a little before the other men, I
will take you to her. She is really quite well in herself, but we
daren't risk any glare of light for her as yet. Isn't it nice to see
poor Norman looking so much happier?"
"Yes; of the two, I think he does more credit to their travels than
young Dunstan," Sir Adam replied thoughtlessly.
He regretted the remark as soon as he had made it, but a glance at Lady
Marth's face reassured him. She was in utter unconsciousness that
Archie Dunstan and Blanche Derwent had ever met.
"Not that I have much ground for the idea, though," he said to himself.
"I wonder if Hebe can possibly enlighten me."
They were approaching the end of dinner, and the rest of the
conversation between himself and his hostess was on general subjects.
But as she followed her guests to the drawing-room, she touched him
gently on the arm.
"I shall expect you in a few minutes," she said; and a quarter of an
hour or so later, Sir Adam found himself following her up the first
flight of the broad oak staircase, along a passage, the rooms of which,
since her first coming there as a little child, had always been
appropriated to Sir Conway's ward.
"Poor dear child," thought the old man to himself. "Things don't seem
so unequal, after all, in life. Stasy's children have had more than
Hebe, heiress though she is. She has never known what `home' really is
as they have done?"
But it was a very happy Hebe who rose from a low seat near the fireplace
in her pretty boudoir, to greet him as he followed Lady Marth into the
room.
"Now, I shall leave you alone," she said. "I'm sure you've heaps to say
to each other."
They had more to talk of even than the lady of the house suspected. For
long after Hebe had replied to all her old friend's inquiries about
herself--the result of the operation, and the still necessary
precautions to be observed--and had told him the happy hopes for the
future she now dared to entertain, they still went on talking earnestly
and eagerly.
"I think our marriage will be early in the spring," Hebe had said, and
the allusion seemed to send Sir Adam's thoughts in a further direction.
"Hebe," he said, "I want to speak to you about my friends the Derwents,
whom I am delighted to find you've got to know on your own account."
The girl's face lighted up with the keenest interest. "I too want to
talk about them to you," she said. "I have just been wondering if I may
speak to you _quite_ openly."
"Certainly you may do so--it is just what I have been hoping for,"
replied Sir Adam, and the hands of the pretty clock on Hebe's
mantelpiece had very nearly made their accustomed journey of a full hour
before it suddenly struck Sir Adam that he was scarcely behaving with
courtesy to his hosts in spending so much of the evening away from the
rest of the party.
Just then Norman Milward put his head in at the door.
"I'm most sorry to interrupt you," he said. "But Lady Marth thinks that
perhaps--"
"Of course," said Sir Adam, rising as he spoke; "I had no business to
stay so long.--Then you'll expect us to-morrow afternoon, my dear child?
I will explain it to Lady Marth.--You'll stay up here, I suppose,
Milward?"
"Yes," the young man replied; "I've scarcely seen her yet. It seems all
too good to be true."
Sir Adam glanced back at them as he left the room, standing together on
the hearthrug, the firelight dancing on the two bright heads, on the two
young faces so very full of happy gratitude.
"I scarcely feel like a childless old fogy, after all," he thought, as
he made his way down-stairs. "It seems to me I have a good many
children. That little Stasy now--Blanche is charming, but Stasy is
perfectly irresistible."
About four o'clock the next afternoon the Alderwood brougham might have
been seen on the road from Blissmore to East Moddersham. There were two
people inside it--Blanche Derwent and Sir Adam. It was a cold day, for
the autumn was now advancing rapidly.
"Dear me," said Blanche, with a slight shiver, as she glanced out of the
window at her side, "this road is beginning to look quite wintry. It is
just about a year since mamma and Stasy and I drove along here for the
first time, the day we came down to look at Pinnerton Lodge--only a
year!"
Sir Adam stooped and drew the fur rug a little more closely round her.
"Blanche, my dear," he said, "you are a sweet, good child, I know, but
I'm _very_ angry with you, nevertheless. You really might have helped
me to make your mother see things more reasonably."
"But if I don't see them `reasonably' myself?" said Blanche. "I can't
help quite agreeing with what mamma feels; and after all, Sir Adam, it
is only a few months' delay."
"But a few months mean a good deal at my age," he persisted. "Your
mother promises to look upon me--for the years, certainly not many, that
still remain to me--entirely as a father. Why should we put off acting
upon this at once, for a scruple which, after all, need be of no
importance?" Blanche hesitated.
"I can't feel that," she said. "To me it seems so much better, from
every point of view, to carry out our plan for the time arranged. And
you know, Sir Adam, it will not practically make much difference. You
couldn't risk all the winter in England, and mamma thinks it better not
to interrupt Herty's and Stasy's lessons, though, of course, these are
secondary reasons; the real one is our promise to Miss Halliday and--"
"And what?"
"Perhaps it is selfish," said Blanche. "But somehow it seems to me more
dignified not to give up what we are doing, so hurriedly, as if--almost
as if we were at all ashamed of it;" and she blushed a little.
"There's something in that perhaps," replied her old friend. "Perhaps
in my heart I agree with you to some extent. But I am tired of
wandering about by myself. I am longing to feel I have got a home
again, and daughters to care about me in my last days."
"Dear Sir Adam," said Blanche, "you don't know how I love to hear you
speak like that! The winter will seem as bright as possible to us with
the looking forward to going back to Pinnerton in the spring. You're
going to see our house to-day, aren't you, while I am with Lady Hebe?
You mustn't be disappointed in its size. It isn't at all large, you
know, but those half-finished rooms mamma was telling you about can
easily be made very nice."
"Yes, I'm sure of it," said Sir Adam. "I've no love for very big houses
and the worries they entail. The Bracys are very good-natured, and will
let us make plans beforehand, so as to lose no time. They turn out in
May next year, don't they? And by then your beloved Miss Halliday will
have found an assistant to suit her--not as difficult a matter as a
moneyed partner, which she will not now require. Then, as I was saying,
I shall take a house in London for a short time, and all of you must
join me there. We must give Stasy a pleasanter impression of London
than she has, poor child. But here we are--"
Blanche looked up with interest at the fine old house. It was the first
time she had seen more of it than its gables and chimneys through the
trees, even though for several months they had been within a
stone's-throw of the lodge gates.
"I will take you up at once to Hebe's room," said Sir Adam, "as she is
expecting you;" and he led the way across the hall to the wide
staircase.
"And how shall I meet you again?" said Blanche, who was not above a
certain sensation of nervousness at the thought of encountering the
formidable Lady Marth in her own house.
"It will be all right," Sir Adam replied, laying his hand lightly on her
shoulder as he spoke. "Hebe will look after you," for he was quick
enough to perceive her slight timidity, and liked her none the less for
it. His kind tone reassured her, but had she known who was at that
moment crossing the hall below them, it is very certain that Blanche's
habitual calm would have been still more seriously disturbed.
She forgot all about Lady Marth and everything else for the moment in
the pleasure of seeing Hebe Shetland again--her "girl with the happy
face," chastened perhaps, somewhat paler and thinner than she remembered
her, but sweeter still, and best of all, with the same bright sunny
eyes, bearing no traces of the suffering they had gone through.
Hebe caught her by both hands and kissed her.
"Dear Blanche," she said.
The words and gesture surprised Blanche a little, but pleased her still
more; while to Hebe it was an immense gratification to feel that she and
the girl she had instinctively chosen as a friend could now meet on
equal ground, with no constraint.
"It is so good of you to come," she said to Blanche.
"So good of Sir Adam to bring you"--But Sir Adam had already
disappeared. "I have been looking forward so very much to seeing you
again. I only wish you were at Pinnerton Lodge, and then you would come
to see me often, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, indeed," said Blanche heartily, thinking to herself with
satisfaction that, thanks to Sir Adam, there could no longer be any
complication in the matter. "But we shall not be at Pinnerton for a
good while--not till next summer; however, I will come to see you
whenever I can, you may be quite sure."
"I'm afraid I shan't be allowed to go as far as Blissmore just yet,"
said Hebe; "I have to guard against any chill. But I had quite hoped
you were coming back to the Lodge soon, from what Sir Adam said last
night."
"Dear Sir Adam," said Blanche. "I could never tell you how good he is
to us! But still, things must stay as they are for a while." And then
she went on to explain to Hebe the position of affairs with regard to
Miss Halliday, and how much they felt themselves indebted to her, adding
simply: "At that time she really seemed our only friend."
Hebe stroked Blanche's hand.
"I quite understand how you feel," she said, "and I have no doubt you
are right. But Sir Adam was so full of it last night, he was sure he'd
get your tenants to turn out at once, and--he's such an old man now,
Blanche--he can't have many years to live. Don't you think perhaps, for
his sake, you should not be _quite_ so scrupulous?"
"It may be possible to arrange things a little sooner," said Blanche.
"Of course his wishes will be almost our first thought now. But, you
see, in any case he must not risk the winter in this climate."
"I was forgetting that," said Hebe regretfully. "He seems so much
stronger lately."
Then they went on to talk of other things, Hebe giving a few details of
all she had gone through.
"I can bear to think of it now that it is all so happily over;" and in
the interest of their conversation time passed rapidly.
Hebe started when the silvery sound of a gong reached them from the hall
below.
"That's the tea-gong," she said. "I am allowed to go down to tea, for
Josephine keeps the room in a half-light for me. I had no idea it was
so late."
The two girls went down the staircase together; the drawing-room door
stood open, and a hum of voices reached their ears before they entered
the room. Then Lady Marth's clear, decided tones rang out conspicuously
above the others.
"Nonsense!" she was saying. "You can both stay if you choose--you know
you are always welcome."
"That must be Norman," said Hebe gladly, "and--"
But Blanche heard no more, for by this time they were inside the room,
and Lady Marth was addressing her.
"How do you do, Miss Derwent? My hands are full of teacups, you see. I
persuaded Sir Adam to stay to tea."
Some one came forward from the little group near the fire. It was
almost too dark to distinguish faces at the first moment, but Hebe's,
"This is Norman, Blanche," prepared her for his cordial greeting.
"Here's a nice corner for you both," said Mr Milward. "No foot-stools
to stumble over!"
"I see better in the dark than the rest of you, I think," said Hebe
laughingly; "it is too bad for you all to suffer for my sake.--Oh," she
exclaimed, "is that you, Archie? I didn't know you were coming back
again to-day."
"Norman brought me over," Mr Dunstan replied.
"And he's pretending he can't stay to dinner," put in Lady Marth.--"As
if your aunt would mind, Archie!"
He did not at once reply. He was shaking hands with Blanche.
"How do you do, Miss Derwent?" he said easily. "I hope Mrs Derwent is
well, and that famous little brother of yours?"
"Yes, thank you," said Blanche, in a tone which she endeavoured to
render unconstrained, though feeling for once nervous, and ill at ease
and disgusted at herself for being so, especially as Mr Dunstan struck
her as his airiest, most conventional self.
"I really can't stay," he went on, turning again to Lady Marth. "Auntie
is counting upon me, as she has got a man too few, and some people are
coming to dinner."
"It's only to take in Rosy," said Norman, with a brother's brutality.
"Only Rosy!" repeated Lady Marth. "My dear Norman, if Rosy were any one
but your sister, I don't think you would be quite so much at a loss to
account for Archie's obstinacy."
Archie laughed a hearty unconstrained laugh. "Archie's taste is not
peculiar; every one loves a _tete-a-tete_ with Rosy, when they have a
chance of it," said Hebe, with apparently uncalled-for warmth.
"Of course they do," said Sir Adam, speaking for the first time.--"And
now, my dear Blanche, if you've had a cup of tea, I think we must be
off--I have to get back to Alderwood in time for dinner, too, Master
Archie. By-the-bye, we've got the large brougham--will you come with us
_via_ Blissmore, though it is rather a round?"
"Well no, I think I prefer Norman's cart, which is here," said Mr
Dunstan lightly. "Though many thanks, all the same."
"And how is Norman going to get home, then?" said Lady Marth. "You're
not going to force him away too?"
"The cart can come back," said Archie.
"Thank you," said Norman, somewhat grimly. "_Pray_, be on no ceremony."
"There comes our brougham," said Sir Adam, shaking hands with Lady
Marth, Blanche following his example.
Then came a more affectionate farewell from Hebe, who accompanied them
to the drawing-room door.
"I mustn't go farther," she said; but Norman Milward crossed the hall to
see them off, Mr Dunstan having contented himself with a regulation
hand-shake, when standing beside his hostess on the hearthrug.
The air outside felt chilly as they stepped into the carriage, but not
so chilly as a strange, unreasonable breath of disappointment, which
seemed to pass through Blanche, though, even to herself, she would have
shrunk from calling it by such a name.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
HEBE'S GOOD NEWS.
May again! A later spring this year than last. As Blanche Derwent
stood at the window of a house in a broad, airy street, at one end of
which the trees of the Park were to be seen, she could scarcely believe
it was same time of year, the same date, actually, as the day on which
the news of their reversal of fortune had reached her mother at
Pinnerton Lodge.