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.
Lady Harriot, whose manners, as I have indicated, were not exactly “grande dame,” looked, and honestly was, a little perplexed.
“How de do?” she said, with as much civility as she was in the habit of showing to any but her immediate cronies, and turning to Blanche, “How de do?”
Blanche happened at the moment to be standing in the full light, and as she looked down in calm response to the little woman’s greeting, even obtuse Lady Harriot was struck by her incontestable beauty.
“She stood there like a picture,” said one of the others present, when describing the momentary scene, and though the words were childish, they expressed the feeling.
Nevertheless, “the picture” was the first to take in the whole situation.
“Mamma,” she said quietly, “I scarcely think Lady Harriot Dunstan recognises us.”
“Oh yes, I do; at least I – I’m sure I’ve seen you before,” began Lady Harriot, in a nearer approach to flutter than was usual with her. For, after all, she was “a lady born,” as the poor folk express it, and conscious of the obligations of a hostess. “I’m sure I – ”
“You were so good as to come to see us when we were staying temporarily at Blissmore,” said Mrs Derwent clearly. “I believe you did so at Mrs Lilford’s request. And I should apologise for not having returned your call sooner, but till quite lately we have been in the agonies of furnishing and moving into our house.”
A light broke over Lady Harriot’s face, but with the illumination her slight diffidence disappeared. She relapsed into her stolid, self-satisfied self, and the change was not an improvement.
“Oh yes, I thought I’d seen you before,” she said. “I’ve been away, but you needn’t have minded. I told the housekeeper after I saw you that you might be coming over to see the – ”
“Aunt Harriot,” said a masculine voice, suddenly breaking in at this juncture, “excuse me, but is there any reason why your friends and you should be standing all this time? If you specially want to remain in that part of the room, may I not at least bring some chairs forward?”
And then Blanche, lifting her eyes, saw that a man, a very young man he seemed to her at first sight, was standing not many paces off, behind Lady Harriot, slightly hidden by some intervening furniture or upholstery.
He came forward as he spoke, thus entirely disengaging himself from a little group – two or three women sitting, and another older man, who had also, of course, risen from his chair – at one end of the room, and Blanche’s grave eyes scanned him with some interest.
It is sometimes – often – well that we are in ignorance of the unspoken thoughts of those about us, but it is sometimes to be regretted. A link of sympathy would have been quickly forged between the girl and the man in this case, had she known the words which almost forced themselves through his teeth.
“Those confounded pictures! Is Aunt Harriot an utter fool?” he said to himself. “To speak to women like these as if they were her maid’s cousins asking to see the house!”
Lady Harriot turned, and a smile – the first of its kind that the Derwents had seen – came over her face, mellowing its plain features with a pleasant glow, for her husbands nephew, Archie Dunstan, owned perhaps the softest spot in her heart.
“Certainly,” she said. “Won’t you sit down, Mrs – Oh, I know,” triumphantly, “Mrs Fleming?” Irritating as it was, Blanche could not repress a smile; and the smile, like an electric spark, darted across to Archie Dunstan, and was reflected in his face. Mrs Derwent flushed slightly; she too was more than half inclined to laugh.
“No, Lady Harriot,” she said, “I am sorry to contradict you, but in this instance you do not ‘know.’ My name is Derwent. It used to be Fenning, in the old days when this house was almost home to me.”
Mrs Derwent’s intonation, as has before been mentioned, was remarkably distinct. Her words penetrated to the group of ladies, and a slight rustle ensued. Then a very tall, thin, still wonderfully erect figure came forward, both hands outstretched in welcome.
“Then are you Stasy?” said a tremulous, aged voice – “little Anastasia Fenning? And can this be your daughter? Dear me – dear me! Do you remember me? Aunt Grace – Sir Adam’s cousin? I am pleased to see you again.” And the very old lady stooped to kiss her long-ago young friend on the cheek.
“Aunt Grace!” repeated Mrs Derwent; “oh, I am glad to see you;” and her eyes glistened with more than pleasure. It seemed the first real welcome to her old home that she had received.
Lady Harriot stood by, trying to look amiable, but feeling rather bored.
“How very interesting!” she said. “You’ve met before, then. Isn’t it nearly tea-time? Do sit down, Aunt Grace; you will be tired if you stand so long.” But Mrs Selwyn would not sit down till she had drawn Mrs Derwent to a place beside her.
“Tell me all about yourselves,” she said. “What a lovely daughter! She must know Hebe. – Hebe, my dear,” and she turned to look for her.
But “Hebe has gone, Mrs Selwyn,” said one or two voices, the older of the two men adding: “She is to be with us to-night, and Norman was to meet her at the lodge, I think.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” said the old lady; and then seeing the puzzled look on Mrs Derwent’s face, she went on to explain. “Hebe Shetland is the grand-daughter of one of my earliest friends. She is an orphan, and lives with the Marths, and she is a delightful girl Lady Harriot is really my niece on the other side, for she is no relation to Sir Adam or Amy Lilford, whom you remember, of course?”
“Yes,” said Blanche’s mother, “but not very well. Dear Sir Adam, of course, I remember as well as I do my father. But I began to think something must have happened to him – he never answered my first letter.” And she went on to tell how she had written to ask Mrs Lilford about him, and had at last received a letter from himself. And then she repeated her expressions of pleasure at meeting Mrs Selwyn.
“I am only here for a few days,” said the old lady. “In fact, I leave to-morrow. I wish I could have seen more of you, but I fear it is impossible. I shall be back in the autumn again, however, if I am still alive. And you are sure to see Adam when he comes to England.”
“I hope so, indeed,” said Mrs Derwent fervently.
Mrs Selwyn looked at her with kind and understanding eyes.
“You must feel rather strange,” she said, “and perhaps a little lonely, after your long absence and the complete change of life. And some English people are so dull, so slow to take in an idea. She,” with a slight inclination of her head towards their hostess, “is a good woman in her way, but intensely dull and narrow. And I don’t think you would care much for Lady Marth. However, in this world one has to make the best of one’s neighbours, as well as of a good many other things. Now tell me all you can about yourself and your children. But first – Archie, I want to introduce you to my very old friend’s daughter – Blanche, did you say her name was, Stasy? How well it suits her!”
“Archie” asked nothing better; and in another moment – for he had a great gift of chatter – he was talking to Miss Derwent in his most charming manner, Blanche listening quietly, with a slight suspicion of condescension in her tone, which greatly amused the young man. For, after all, he was not so young as he looked. It set him on his mettle, however, and made him feel it a positive triumph when he succeeded in drawing out a smile of amusement, which lighted up her blue eyes into new beauty.
All this time – though, in reality, no very great stretch of minutes had passed since the mother and daughter first entered the room – Stasy was waiting in the fly outside. But, after a while, the distractions of wondering how her mother and Blanche were “getting on;” of listening to the observations which the driver from time to time addressed in a sleepy voice to his horse, while he lazily tickled its ears with the end of his whip; or of peering in as far as she could see, in hopes of a gleam of primroses among the thick growing shrubs at one side of the house, began to pall upon her. And the tantalising possibility of the primroses so near at hand carried the day.
Out of the carriage stepped Miss Stasy.
“If any one should meet me, or if mamma and Blanche were vexed, I could say I was getting too cold sitting still, which would be perfectly true,” she said to herself.
There was no getting in among the shrubs and trees from the immediate front; but the yellow specks were more clearly visible, and Stasy was not a girl to be easily baffled when she had got a thing in her head. So she made her way round by a side path skirting the house at some little distance, saying to the driver as she passed him, that if the ladies came out, he was to say she would be back immediately. The path was somewhat deceptive; it led her further than she knew, till she suddenly came out on a broader one bearing away towards another drive some way off at the back of the house, ending in a small lodge on the road to Crossburn.
A sort of curiosity led Stasy on.
“I’ll look for primroses as I go back,” she said. “I do like finding out about places. I wonder if this way would take us back to Pinnerton across the fields somehow.”
Everything was perfectly still. She stood some little way up the drive, looking towards the gate, and wishing she dared venture as far as the road without risk of keeping her mother and Blanche waiting. The ground was dry and crisp; last year’s leaves were still lying thickly; and at the other side of the drive a small fir-wood was attractively tempting.
“I wish our woods at Pinnerton were more firs than all mixed kinds of trees as they are,” thought Stasy. “I do love cones so, and the pricks make such a nice crackle when you walk on them. We used to get tired of the fir-woods at Arcachon, I remember. I think there is something fresher about them in England.”
And with a sigh at having to cut short the delights of her exploration, she was turning to retrace her steps, when a sound fell on her ears which made her stop short.
It was a woman’s – a girl’s – voice, singing softly, but clearly, the old ballad of “Robin Adair.” Stasy had never heard it; but she was of a sensitive and impressionable nature, and the indescribable charm of the song fell upon her at once. She stood motionless, till, in another moment, the figure of the singer, advancing towards her, grew visible.
“I knew it was a girl,” thought Stasy. “I hope she won’t leave off, I wish I could hide.”
She glanced round her. There was no possibility of such a thing; and in another moment the new-comer had seen her, and had left off singing. She stopped short as she came up to Stasy, and glanced at her inquiringly, with a slight, half-comical smile.
“Have you lost your way?” she said. “Are you not one of the Miss Derwents? It seems always my fate to be directing one or other of you. I met your little brother a day or two ago, looking as if he had lost his way.”
“No,” said Stasy laughing; “he had only lost us. And I have not lost my way either, thank you. I am waiting in the fly at the door for my mother and sister, who are calling on Lady Harriot Dunstan.”
“Are you?” said Lady Hebe. “I should have said, do you know, that you were wandering about the woods at the back of the house, looking for – I don’t know what.”
Stasy laughed again. There was something infectious about Hebe’s comical tone.
“Primroses,” Stasy replied promptly. “It was primroses that first lured me out of the fly, I think. But now I’m beginning to be afraid that mamma and Blanche may be waiting for me; perhaps I had better go back.”
“They can scarcely be ready yet,” said her new friend. “They had not come in when I left the drawing-room, and I have not been long. I only stopped a minute or two to speak to the dogs. There are some dear dogs here. And tea was just about coming in. No; you are safe for a few minutes yet. Would you” – and she hesitated a little – “would you like to walk to the lodge with me, and a little way down the road I can show you another way back to the front of the house?”
Stasy was delighted.
“We know who each other is – or are – oh dear, how can I say it?” she replied as they walked on, “though we have never been introduced. I am only sorry you were not in the house there when Blanche came in. She would have liked to see you so much.”
Lady Hebe’s face flushed a little.
“I wish I had been,” she said. “We must have had the same feeling. I have wanted to meet your sister. I love her face, though I have only seen her twice. Perhaps, some day – ” Then she hesitated. “I was rather hurried,” she went on; “I promised to meet – a friend, who will walk back to Crossburn with me.”
“Then you are not staying here, at Alderwood?” said Stasy.
“Oh no; I am not staying anywhere, except at what is my home – East Moddersham, near you. I came over here this afternoon to see Lady Harriot, or, rather, to see a dear old lady who is staying here. I sent my ponies on to Crossburn, as I am dining there, and shall dress there, and drive home late.”
“How nice!” said Stasy. “How delightful to have your own ponies and do exactly as you like! I do think English girls have such nice lives – so much fun and independence. I should have liked England ever so much better than France if I had been brought up in it, but as it is – ” And Stasy sighed.
Lady Hebe listened with great interest. “And as it is,” she repeated, “do you not like it?”
“It is so very dull,” said Stasy lugubriously. “At least, I shouldn’t find it dull if I might amuse myself in ways mamma and Blanche would not like.”
Hebe looked rather startled, but Stasy was too engrossed with her own woes to notice it. “I mean,” she continued, “that there are some girls at the school I go to for classes, who are really nice, and there are lots who are very amusing. But mamma and Blanchie don’t want me to make friends with them, because, you see – well, they are not exactly refined.”
“I see,” said Hebe gravely; “and, of course, I think your mother and sister are quite right. But I can quite understand that it must be dull – for your sister too, is it not? She is not much older than you.”
“No,” said Stasy, “but she is different She has always been so very, very good, you see. She has never been – well, rather mischievous, and wanting a lot of fun, you know.”
“But she doesn’t look dull,” said Hebe. “She has a very bright expression sometimes in her eyes. I am sure she has some fun in her too. I don’t think I could have been so attracted by her if she had not had fun in her; I am so fond of it myself,” she added naïvely.
“Oh yes,” said Stasy, “Blanchie is very quick, and very ready for fun too. But she never grumbles. If things we want don’t come, she is just content without I’m not like that. Next to fun, I like grumbling. I couldn’t live without it.”
Hebe smiled, but in her heart she was thinking that there were some grounds for complaint in the present life of these pretty and attractive girls. They attracted her curiously; they were so unlike others – so refined, and yet original; so perfectly well-bred, and yet so unconventional.
“I wish,” she began, but then she stopped. What she was going to wish was nothing very definite, and yet it was better, perhaps, left unexpressed.
“When I am married,” she thought, “I shall have more in my power in many ways. Norman will understand; he always does. I fear there would be no use in trying to get Lady Marth to be kind to them. She would only think it one of my ‘fads.’”
But suddenly Stasy started.
“I am afraid,” she said, “that I am going too far, and mamma and Blanche may be looking for me. Perhaps I had better go back now.”
“I don’t think they are likely to have come out yet,” said Hebe. “But I don’t want to make you uneasy, so perhaps you had better go back. Good-bye, and – I hope we may meet again soon.”
She held out her hand, and Stasy, looking at her as she took it, felt the indescribable charm of the sweet, sunshiny face.
“Yes,” she thought, “Blanche was right, and Herty was right. She is lovely.”
“I do hope so,” she replied eagerly, as they separated. Lady Hebe walked on, thinking. For she thought a good deal.
“Poor little thing,” she said to herself, “it must be very dull. Yet they have each other, and their mother: the only things that have ever been wanting to me, they have! But still, the strangeness and the loneliness, and the not having any clear place of their own. I wonder they cared to settle in England; I wonder if there is nothing I can do for them.”
She had reached the lodge gates by this time. A little further down the road – scarcely more than a lane – was a stile, on the other side of which lay the field path, which was the short cut to Crossburn.
And leaning by the stile was a figure, which, at the first glimpse of Hebe emerging from the Alderwood grounds, started forward, hastening across with eager gladness; young, manly, full of life and brightness, he seemed almost a second Hebe, in masculine form.
“Norman,” she exclaimed, “I haven’t kept you long waiting, have I?”
“I enjoyed it, dear: not very long. I liked to watch for the first gleam of you,” he said simply.
And together, in the long rays of the soft evening sunshine, the two young creatures made their way across the fields.
“What have I done,” said Hebe Shetland to herself – “what have I done to be so very, very happy?”