Chapter Ten
At the Vicarage
The second event which about this time made a little break in the monotony of the lives at Pinnerton Lodge came out of the first; for it was the result of much consideration on Lady Hebe’s part as to what she could do to enliven things for these two girls, who seemed in a sense to have been thrown across her path.
She knew that it was useless to appeal to Lady Marth, her guardian’s wife – a woman who had deliberately narrowed her life and her sympathies by restricting all her interests to a small and very exclusive clique, which was the more to be regretted as she was naturally intelligent and quick of discernment, without the excuse of poor Lady Harriot Dunstan’s intense native stupidity. But Hebe managed to have a good talk with Mrs Selwyn – “Aunt Grace” – the very morning after the Derwents’ visit to Alderwood, and Aunt Grace’s own interest in the new-comers being keen, she was delighted to find Hebe’s enlisted on their behalf.
“I am very sorry I am leaving so immediately,” said Mrs Selwyn. “I might have been of a little use to them, even though very little. You see, no one is altogether to blame in a case like this. Life is short, and there are only so many hours in each day, and no one can be in two places at once, or full of conflicting interests at the same time. People who are half their lives in London, in the thick of the things of the day, all have too much upon them; it is difficult to get to know much of those who are quite out of it. And the Derwents are only half English, too.”
“Then do you think it a mistake for them to have come to live here?” said Hebe.
“I scarcely know; I can’t judge. They have put themselves in a difficult position, but there may have been excellent reasons for their leaving France. If they are very high-minded, superior women, they may be happy, and make interests for themselves, and not fret about things they cannot have. Certainly they – the mother, I should say – is far too refined to struggle or strain after society.”
“And the elder one is, I do believe, an extraordinarily high-minded girl,” said Hebe, with a sort of enthusiasm. “Still, it isn’t fair upon her to be shut out from things; and the little one, though she is as tall as I” – with a smile – “says frankly that she finds it woefully dull.”
“And she is only sixteen,” said Mrs Selwyn; “not out, and with French ideas about young girls. Dear me, it must be very dull indeed for a girl brought up on those lines to think it so.”
“She is not the very least French in herself,” said Hebe. “Just a touch of something out of the common in her tone and manners, perhaps. But I never met a more thoroughly English girl in feeling. Yes, indeed. What will she think when she is grown up?”
“Let us hope that things may improve for them a little, before then,” said Mrs Selwyn.
Then the two – the old woman and the young – put their heads together as to what they could do; the result being that, three or four days after the drive to Alderwood, a note was brought to Blanche one morning, inviting her and her sister to afternoon tea at the vicarage.
“I expect one or two young friends living in the neighbourhood,” wrote Mrs Harrowby, the vicaress, “whom you may like to meet, and who, on their side, have some hopes of getting you to help in their little local charities.”
“Humph,” said Stasy, when Blanche read this aloud; “I’ve no vocation for that sort of thing. I think you had better go without me.”
“No, I certainly won’t,” said her sister, without much misgiving. For she saw that, notwithstanding Stasy’s ungraciousness, she was secretly pleased at even this mild prospect of a little variety.
Mrs Harrowby’s attentions hitherto – though her good offices had been bespoken for the Derwents by her brother at Blissmore – had been less friendly, and more, so to say, professional. She was a very busy woman, almost too scrupulous in her determination to be “the same to everybody,” to show no difference between her bearing towards the retired tradespeople of Pinnerton Green, and towards Lady Marth, or other county dignitaries; the result being, that no attention she ever paid to any one was considered much of a compliment. But she was well-born and well-bred, though not specially endowed with tact.
And she was honestly pleased when Lady Hebe appealed to her to suggest something that might help to enliven the sisters at Pinnerton Lodge.
“Yes,” she agreed, “I have thought it must be very dull for them. And yet I could not exactly take it upon me to suggest their making friends with their neighbours here. Something in their manner has caused a slight prejudice against them. None of the families here have called.”
“What neighbours or families are you talking of, Mrs Harrowby?” said Hebe quickly. She knew the vicar’s wife very well – knew, too, her peculiar way of looking at social things, and was not in the very least in awe of her. “Lady Harriot has called, though – ”
“Of course, I was not speaking of neighbours of that kind,” replied Mrs Harrowby, interrupting her. “I meant the Wandles at Pinnerton Villa, and the Bracys: I am sure Adela Bracy is as nice a girl as one could wish to see, and Florence Wandle is good-nature itself. It is much wiser, as well as more Christian, to throw aside those ridiculous ideas of class prejudice, and make the best of the people you live among.”
“Then why should not all the county people call upon the Derwents, as well as the Wandles and Bracys?” said Hebe, with a very innocent air.
Mrs Harrowby coloured a little.
“I don’t know. I don’t see why you should blame them if they don’t, as you evidently don’t blame the Derwents for standing off from the Green people. But, the fact of the matter is, they would have nothing in common with the Derwents. You know yourself, Hebe, Lady Marth couldn’t find anything to talk to Mrs Derwent about – now, could she?”
“She could if she chose,” said Hebe; “but I don’t want to talk about Josephine” – she always called her guardian’s wife, who was still a comparatively young woman, by her first name – “she and I don’t agree on several points, but she is very good to me. I am not going to urge her calling on Mrs Derwent, for she wouldn’t, if I did. And I don’t think the Derwents could possibly like the only side of herself she would show them. But putting her aside, I certainly don’t see that the Derwents would have ‘anything in common’ with the Wandles and people like that, if you take that ground.”
“Then they should have,” said Mrs Harrowby, who was apt to take refuge in didactic utterances, when she found herself driven into a corner.
Hebe laughed.
“We have not come to the point at all, though we have been talking all this time,” she said. “What I was thinking of was some plan for enlivening the Derwent girls a little. At present,” and she blushed slightly, “I can do nothing, but supposing we ask them to help us with our girls’ guild? You do want to improve it, don’t you? The last meetings have been so deadly dull. And we were speaking of some new things – cooking lessons, was it?”
“Yes, we spoke of that, but I think we must wait till one of the professional cooking ladies comes round. We were speaking of millinery lessons – the girls do make such vulgar guys of themselves.”
“That would be nice,” said Hebe. “I daresay Miss Derwent could help us. And we must have some treats for the girls when the weather is quite warm enough. Let us have a meeting, and talk it all over. You can ask Miss Wandle and Miss Bracy, and I will get Norman’s sister to come, though it is rather beyond their part of the country. For she might get leave to invite the guild to Crossburn. Yes, do let us have a nice afternoon-tea meeting here, and talk it over comfortably.”
Mrs Harrowby consented. There were not many people who could refuse Hebe anything she had set her heart upon. Besides, the vicars wife had no objection to the proposal. She was kind-hearted, if a trifle dictatorial, and not without a pleasant strain of humour, as well as a fair amount of sympathy.
So, on the appointed afternoon, Blanche and Stasy made their way to the vicarage.
“How pretty you look, Blanchie!” said Stasy, with a gush of sisterly enthusiasm. “I do think you are getting prettier and prettier. England suits you, I suppose,” with a little sigh.
Blanche laughed.
“Suits my looks, I suppose you mean?” she said lightly. Stasy’s admiration amused, but did not much impress her. Indeed she was not of the nature to be much impressed by any admiration. She knew she was “pretty,” as she called it to herself, but the subject never dwelt in her thoughts. And she was entirely without vanity. Many a girl of far less beauty, of no beauty at all, gives a hundred times more consideration to the question of outward appearance than would have been possible under any circumstances for Blanche Derwent.
There seemed to be quite a number of people in the vicarage drawing-room when they entered it. Stasy – who, to tell the truth, was feeling a trifle shy, though wild horses would not have drawn such a confession from her – had insisted on coming some minutes later than the hour at which they had been invited.
“I don’t want to seem so very eager about it,” she said to Blanche. “And if we go early, we are sure to be set down to talk to some of the Green people. It would be horrid.”
To some extent, she was caught in her own trap. A chair was offered her between two girls, neither of whom she had seen before, and who, she immediately decided, must belong to the neighbours she certainly had no reason to feel friendliness towards. For, whatever had been the motive, and though very possibly their staying away was from the social point of view more gratifying than their calling would have been, no kindliness of any kind had been shown or attempted by the good folk of Pinnerton Green to the little family who had come as strangers among them.
Stasy glanced cautiously at the girls beside her. One was plain, not to say ugly, and dressed with almost exaggerated simplicity. Her features were heavy and ill-assorted; her nose was large, and nevertheless seemed too short for the curious length of her face; her eyes – no, she was not looking Stasy’s way – her eyes could not be pronounced upon.
“She is really ugly,” thought Stasy; “I haven’t seen any English girl as ugly as she is. And how very plainly she is dressed: I wonder if it is because she knows she is ugly. It cannot be that she’s poor: all these common people here are rich. Her dress is only” – Stasy gave another covert glance at the cloth skirt touching her own – “only – no, it’s good of its kind, though so plainly made, and yet – ”
Yes, there was a “yet,” very decidedly, both as to dress, which was the very best of its kind, and, when the girl slowly turned to Stasy with some trivial remark, as to looks. For her eyes were beautiful, quite beautiful, with the touch of pathos in them which one sometimes sees in eyes which are the only redeeming feature of an undeniably plain face.
“Have a little indulgence for me – I cannot help myself,” such eyes seem to say, and Stasy, sensitive as quicksilver, responded at once to the unspoken appeal.
“Thank you,” she said gently, “I have plenty of room – no, I don’t mind being near the window,” and then she salved over to herself her suavity to “one of those Wandle or Bracy girls,” by reflecting that Blanche had said it would be very wrong indeed to show anything but perfect courtesy and kindliness at a party especially arranged for a charitable object, though a slight misgiving came over her when the owner of the beautiful eyes spoke again in an evidently less conventional and more friendly tone.
“That was your sister who came in with you, was it not? I am so glad to see her more distinctly. She is so – so very lovely.”
Stasy, gratified though she felt on one side, stiffened slightly. Miss Wandle should not comment upon Blanche’s appearance, however favourably.
“Yes,” she said, “every one thinks so. I do, I can’t deny.”
Then she turned to her neighbour on the right. She was a pretty girl, with wavy brown hair, and a charming rosebud of a face. But her dress, though much more studied than the austere but perfectly fitting tweed, jarred at once on Stasy’s correct instincts. So did her voice, when in reply to the inquiry as to whether any guild business had yet been transacted, she said:
“Oh no, we always have tea first. Mrs Harrowby says it makes us feel more at” – was there or was there not a suspicion of the absence of the aspirate, instantaneously and almost obtrusively corrected? – “at – at home; not so shy about speaking out, you know.”
“Oh indeed,” said Stasy.
Then she turned again to the heavy face and the luminous eyes, in whose depths she now read a twinkle of fun.
“I like you, whoever you are,” she thought. And as at that moment Hebe came up with outstretched hand and cordial “How do you do? You found your way the other day, I hope?” an irrepressible little burst of enthusiasm made its way through her caution.
“Is she not charming? She is always so perfectly sweet and happy,” she said.
“Yes indeed,” her neighbour replied, and the bright responsive smile on her face made one forget everything except the eyes. “She is —perfectly charming. I like to see that she gives the same impression to strangers as to those who have known her long. I can remember her nearly all my life, and yet every time I see her there seems something new. She is – I daresay you know? – she is going to be married to my brother Norman. Won’t it be delightful to have her for a sister?”
And again the beautiful eyes gleamed with something brighter than their ordinary expression of appeal.
Stasy gasped. Who, then, was this girl? For an instant, a wild, ridiculous idea rushed through her mind that Lady Hebe must be going to marry one of the Wandles or Bracys, so prepossessed was she with her first guess about her plain-featured neighbour. But she dismissed it at once, and she began to feel shocked at her own want of discernment.
The colour mounted into her face as she replied to her companions question.
“I didn’t know; at least,” hesitatingly, “I am not sure. I think I did hear something, but I can’t remember. I – Please don’t think me rude, but I don’t know your name.”
“I am Rosy Milward. We live at Crossburn, the dearest old, old house in the world,” said the girl.
“Oh!” said Stasy. “Yes, I have heard your name. It will be delightful to have Lady Hebe for your sister.”
But her tone was slightly melancholy. She had been cherishing, half unconsciously perhaps, dreams of special friendship, romantic friendship, between Lady Hebe and herself (though she called it “us,” reluctant to leave out Blanche from anything so charming). And now her dreams seemed shattered. She – Hebe – was going to be married, and here was a sister-friend all ready made for her. It was much better never to expect to see or know any more of the future wife of Mr Norman Milward.
Rosy was conscious of the underlying disappointment, though she could not have defined it.
“I wish I could invite them to come to Crossburn,” she thought to herself. “I don’t like to see such a young girl so subdued and almost sad. But unless grandmamma would call, of course I can’t, and I’m afraid there is no use in trying for that.”
The Milwards had no mother, and their father’s mother, who had to some extent brought them up, was old, and naturally disinclined to make new acquaintances without strong motives for doing so; somewhat narrow and exclusive she was, too, in her ideas, and in this a great contrast to the old friend, with whom, nevertheless, she had much in common – Mrs Selwyn.
Just as Miss Milward was feeling about for some other topic of conversation which might interest her companion, Stasy bent towards her.
“Would you mind telling me who the girl is on my other side – she can’t hear, she is speaking to some one else?”
Rosy glanced across Stasy: she had forgotten for the moment who was sitting there.
“Oh yes,” she said; “that is – let me see. I often confuse the two families: they are cousins. Oh yes; that is Miss Wandle – Florry Wandle, Mrs Harrowby calls her. She helps a good deal with the guild. She has a nice, pretty face, hasn’t she?”
“Very pretty,” Stasy agreed, and she meant what she said, and something in Miss Milward’s tone gratified her. There was a tacit and tactful taking for granted that their little commentary on Miss Wandle was from the same point of view: there was no touch of surprise that Stasy did not already know the girl, or that the Pinnerton Green folk were not of the Derwents’ “world.”
Then they went on to talk a little of the guild and its interests, till a summons to Miss Milward to help at the tea-table interrupted the tête-à-tête. But Stasy’s mercurial spirits had risen again, and they rose still higher, when, encouraged by an almost imperceptible signal from Lady Hebe, she ventured to leave her place, and, as one of the youngest present, volunteered her services in handing about bread and butter and cakes.
And Blanche, meanwhile? On entering, she had at once been led over to the other end of the room, which was a long one, by Mrs Harrowby, and ensconsed in a corner beside Lady Hebe.
“Now, I want to talk to you very seriously, Miss Derwent,” said Blanche’s “girl with the happy face.”
“Mrs Harrowby and I are counting on your doing great things to help us. You see it is such a disadvantage in any little work of this kind for those who principally manage it to be so much away. And if you could take interest in it, it would be such a good thing for the girls. For I suppose” – and she glanced up with a touch of apology – “I suppose you will not be going to London for the season this year, as you have come here so lately?”
“No,” said Blanche simply, “we shall certainly stay here. I doubt if we shall ever go to London except for a day or two’s shopping: we have no friends there.”
“It will be different, of course, when you have been longer in England,” said Hebe. “And,” she added with a smile, “when your sister comes out, I scarcely think she would be satisfied with nothing more amusing than Pinnerton, however content you are.”
Blanche coloured a little.
“You think me better than I am,” she said. “I should enjoy – things – too, but if one can’t have them? But I think I should mind for Stasy more than for myself. She is naturally more dependent on outside life than I. She does feel it very dull and lonely here, and I wish she had some companions.” Hebe looked and felt full of sympathy.
“I hope your life here will brighten by degrees,” she said. “Don’t you think your sister would do something to help us, too? She seems so clever.”
“Yes, she is very quick, and she can be very amusing,” said Blanche. “We should both be glad to do anything we can. But have you not a good many helpers already? And those other ladies – the residents here —they don’t go away. Could not they take charge in your absence much better than a stranger like me?”
She glanced across the room to where Miss Adela Bracy, a small, capable-looking, dark girl, was at the moment saying something in a low voice to the rosebud-faced Florry Wandle. Lady Hebe’s eyes followed hers.
“They are very good, so far as they go,” she replied, “but they are not quite capable of taking the lead. And they have really as much to do as they can manage. It is some one to replace myself when I am away that I want to find. And I could explain it all to you so well, and get advice from you too, I have no doubt.”
“I am very ignorant about such things,” said Blanche.
“Yes, but you have a good head, and you” – here Hebe smiled and blushed a little – “well, you must know how I mean. It would be so different explaining things to you: you would see them from our point of view. These girls are very good-natured and nice, but I never feel sure that they perfectly understand.”
And then she went on to tell Blanche further details about the little work she had inaugurated and carried on – so simply, and yet earnestly, that Blanche’s full interest was quickly won, and they went on talking eagerly till tea and interruption came, as Hebe had to help Mrs Harrowby with her hostess duties.
After tea, some of the ladies drew a little closer together: they were the committee, I believe, and Mrs Harrowby read aloud, for the benefit of all present, a short report of the work that had been done during the last three months, and then some one else sketched out what they hoped to do during the summer, and what they were in want of to enable them to carry out these intentions. Then Lady Hebe announced Miss Milwards offer of a day’s entertainment for the girls at Crossburn House, and Miss Milward was duly thanked; and there was a good deal of practical and some very unpractical talk, during which Mrs Harrowby and Hebe managed to introduce the Misses Derwent as new members whose assistance would be of great value, Hebe going on to say that Miss Derwent had kindly consented to take her own place during her absence in London. Altogether, it was cheerful and informal, and, to Stasy especially, very amusing.
But just as the Derwents were beginning to feel more at home, and Blanche had been introduced to Rosy Milward, and Stasy was laughing at Miss Wandle’s despair about her girls’ insubordination at the singing class, which was her special charge, there fell a wet blanket on the little party. The door opened, and “Lady Marth” was announced.
Hebe’s face sobered. She had not expected her guardian’s wife to call for her, as she had promised to be back before the hour at which Lady Marth wished her to drive with her to Blissmore, and Hebe was a very punctual person.
“Josephine!” she exclaimed. “It is not late. You said you did not want me till – ”
“Oh no, you are not late,” said the new-comer, after shaking hands with Mrs Harrowby and one or two others. “I only came on because Archie” – and here she suddenly turned and looked round her – “where is he? I thought he was behind me – ”
“Who – Archie Dunstan?” said Hebe.
“Yes; he wanted to see you about something or other – fishing or something – and he did not venture to come on here alone, when he heard there was a meeting going on. But it’s over, isn’t it? It doesn’t look very solemn.”
“Well, I think we have discussed everything we had to settle,” said Mrs Harrowby, getting up again from the chair beside Lady Marth, which she had momentarily occupied. “I must say a word or two to Miss – Oh, here he is, Lady Marth – here is Mr Dunstan.”