Chapter Eleven
Ruffled Plumage
“Yes, here I am,” said the young man, as he entered the room and hastened up to Mrs Harrowby, no one suspecting that in his rapid transit he had managed to take in the fact of certain individuals’ presence. “Yes, here I am; and I should apologise, I know, but it is all Lady Marth’s fault. She dragged me here, and then left me in the lurch with the ponies at the door, quite forgetting I was not the groom. And then, no doubt, she has been wondering ‘what in the world has become of that Archie.’”
The few within hearing could not help laughing, he reproduced so cleverly Lady Marth’s coldly languid tones.
She laughed herself, and her laugh was a pleasant one.
“You are very impertinent,” she said. “And as for dragging you here – you know you were dying for an excuse to get in to see what one of Hebe’s meetings was like. He reminded me of the legendary female who exists in so many families, you know, whose husband was a Freemason, and she hid herself to overhear their secrets,” she went on, to Miss Milward, who happened to be nearest her, Mrs Harrowby by this time having crossed the room to Florry Wandle and her cousin.
“Well, my curiosity has not been rewarded – nor punished,” said Mr Dunstan.
And as he spoke he glanced at Blanche, who was standing a little behind Rosy. He had already shaken hands with her, in an unobtrusive, friendly, yet deferential way, which somehow gratified her, simple and un-self-conscious as she was.
“He is such a rattle of a young fellow,” she said to herself; “I wonder he remembers having met me before.”
“When will Hebe be ready?” said Lady Marth, with a sort of soft complaint, as if she had been kept waiting for hours. “Does she need to go on talking confidentially to all those bakers’ and brewers’ daughters whom she is so fond of? – Can’t you give her a hint to be quick, Rosy?”
She half turned, laying her hand on what she supposed to be Miss Milward’s arm; but, somehow, Rosy had moved away. The arm Lady Marth actually touched was Blanche’s.
Blanche started. She had been watching Archie.
“Can I – ” she began; but before she had time to say more, Lady Marth drew herself back.
“Where is Rosy?” she said haughtily. “I thought – I thought the meeting was over, and that we were only ourselves. I really must go,” and she stood up, drawing her cloak, which had partly slipped off, more closely round her shoulders.
Mr Dunstans face grew stern, all the boyishness died out of it, and he looked ten years older.
“Miss Derwent,” he said, in a peculiarly clear and most respectful tone, “I do beg your pardon. I did not notice till this moment that you were standing. If you are going, Lady Marth, you will allow me to move your chair,” and, as he spoke, he drew it forward a little.
Lady Marth gave him an icy glance over her shoulder, and moved away. Blanche simply accepted the courtesy.
“I want to go too,” she said quietly; “but I must see Lady Hebe for one moment, first.”
“Don’t hurry,” said Mr Dunstan; “she is saying good-bye to those girls now, and she is looking towards you. It will do Lady Marth good to be kept waiting for once, so pray be as deliberate as you like. No one asked her to come here, unless – unless, indeed, I did so myself. I don’t – She is quite odious, sometimes,” he went on, disconnectedly, looking, for once, not equal to the occasion.
Blanche lifted her serene eyes to his face.
“Did you think she was rude to me?” she said. “Please don’t mind. She does not know me, or anything about me, so what does it matter? I should mind if any one I knew or cared about was disagreeable or unkind; but when it is a perfect stranger it is quite different.”
The young man looked at her with a mixture of admiration and perplexity. Had she not taken in the covert impertinence of Lady Marth’s speech?
He smiled a little as he replied. “You are very philosophical and very sensible, Miss Derwent,” he said. “But still, I am afraid you must think English people have very bad manners.”
“I have not seen many; I can scarcely judge,” she said. “But I should not like to say so. I think Lady Hebe and that old lady, Mrs Selwyn, and Mrs Harrowby – oh, and others I could name – have charming manners.”
“Why don’t you include my aunt – by marriage only – at Alderwood?” he said maliciously.
Blanche laughed a little.
“Some people can’t help being awkward, I suppose,” she said. “She means to be kind, I think.”
Archie’s face brightened.
“Now you are better than sensible,” he said eagerly – “you are truly kind and charitable. And you are not mistaken. My aunt does mean to be kind, so far as she can understand it. A great many ugly things in this world come from ignorance, after all.”
“And from want of imagination,” said Blanche, thoughtfully. “Want of power to put one’s self in the place of another.”
She was beginning to think there was more in this young man, who had struck her at first as a mere boyish rattle; she was beginning to have a touch of the delightful suspicion that he was one who would “understand” her; and her face grew luminous, and her sweet eyes brighter, as she spoke.
He glanced at her again, with a smile in which there was no disappointment for her.
“Yes, I often think so; I have come to think so. But you are very young to have made such a discovery.”
Blanche could scarcely help laughing at his tone, she had so completely made up her mind that he was little, if any, older than she.
“Why,” she began, “I cannot be much – ” But here she suddenly caught sight of Stasy’s face looking across at her with a sort of indignant appeal.
“Do come away, Blanchie,” it seemed to say.
“Something has rubbed her the wrong way,” thought Blanche, and she moved forward at once. “I think my sister wants me,” she said, with a little movement of the head, as if in farewell.
Archie Dunstan followed her with his eyes; but he was not long left in peace.
“Can’t you get Hebe to come away?” said Lady Marth, in a tone that very little more would have rendered querulous. “Rosy has gone now. Everybody has gone. You are as bad as Hebe, Archie. What on earth could you find to talk to that Miss Wandle, or Bracy, or whoever she was, about?”
“She was neither a Miss Wandle nor a Miss Bracy, Lady Marth,” said Mr Dunstan. “I thought you had more discernment,” and he calmly walked away, entirely disregarding her request that he would summon Hebe.
Lady Marth was angry. She had known that the girl he was talking to was not one of the Pinnerton Green tradespeople’s daughters, and she had had a strong suspicion that she was Miss Derwent. But, of course, she was not going to allow this. She had taken one of her violent and unreasonable prejudices to the Derwents, whom she knew almost nothing about, and would not have felt the slightest interest in, had she not found out that Hebe had come across them, and meant or wished to be kind to them. And she was really very much attached to Hebe, and cared for her good opinion. It annoyed her that she had not been herself appealed to by her husband’s ward in the matter, little sympathy though she would have felt about it, as what she called “one of Hebe’s fads.”
Perhaps, on the whole, it had been a mistake on the girl’s part not to have made an effort to enlist Lady Marth’s interest in the Derwents. But she had been afraid to do so, knowing by experience how extraordinarily disagreeable “Josephine” could be to any one she considered beneath her. Still, her reticence had aroused deeper prejudice on Lady Marth’s side than need have been drawn out; and Mr Dunstan’s manner and tone increased it.
Blanche made her way somewhat anxiously to Stasy.
“Do let us go,” said the younger girl in a half-whisper. “I am sure mamma will be wondering why we are so long,” she added in a louder tone, for Mrs Harrowby’s benefit.
“I was only waiting because Lady Hebe wanted to say something to me,” said Blanche; and Hebe, who had said good-bye by this time to Miss Wandle and her cousin, came hurrying up.
“I won’t keep you any longer just now,” she said, for she had an instinctive dread of Lady Marth; “I am so sorry. Just tell me this – can you meet me here alone some afternoon to look over the account-books, so that it may all be quite clear to you?”
Blanche hesitated. Why should they meet “here?” She could understand Hebe’s not asking her to go to East Moddersham, considering that Lady Marth had not seen fit to call upon Mrs Derwent, but why should not Hebe offer to come to Pinnerton Lodge herself? She glanced up. Hebe was slightly flushed, her lips were parted, and she seemed a little anxious. The expression was new to Blanche on that usually untroubled face, and it touched her. Blanche’s dignity was too simple and true for her to think much about what was “due” to it.
“Yes,” she said, “I can easily do so.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Hebe in a tone of relief.
Then a day and hour were rapidly decided upon, and in another minute or two the sisters found themselves outside the vicarage, on their way home, after saying good-bye to Mrs Harrowby, cordially on Blanche’s part, most cordially on that of the vicar’s wife, somewhat stiffly on Stasys. Mr Dunstan held the door open for them as they passed out, and his markedly deferential bow somewhat smoothed the younger girl’s ruffled plumage.
“That man knows how to behave like a gentleman,” she said. “Who is he, Blanchie? Have you seen him before?”
“Yes,” said Blanche; “he was at Alderwood the afternoon mamma and I called there. I thought he was quite a boy – he looks very young – but I’m not sure about it now. Something in his way of speaking and his manner altogether make me think that perhaps he is older than he looks.”
Stasy listened with interest.
“I like him,” she said decidedly, and for the moment Blanche forgot the expression on her sister’s face which had made her hasten the leave-taking.
“What was the matter, Stasy?” she asked, when it recurred to her. “Why did you look so vexed and uncomfortable?”
“Uncomfortable!” repeated Stasy. “Oh dear, no. I am not afraid of any of those people. They couldn’t make me uncomfortable. I was only angry – very angry. What do you think Mrs Harrowby said?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Blanche. “When I looked across at you, I thought you were getting on so well. Lady Hebe said that that was Miss Milward whom you were talking to, and that she is so nice.”
“The plain girl – indeed, she is almost ugly – with the beautiful eyes,” said Stasy eagerly; “yes, she was awfully nice. But Mrs Harrowby spoilt it all. Just when everybody was standing up to go, she came bustling forward – ”
“She doesn’t bustle,” interposed Blanche.
“Well, never mind – up she came, and began talking to those Wandle girls and me in a patronising sort of way: ‘Your roads lie in the same direction; you will be going home together, I suppose?’ I stared, and to do them justice, they looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘I think you do not know me. I came with my sister, Miss Derwent. I have not the – ’ Then she interrupted me. ‘You don’t mean to say you have not made friends yet? and such near neighbours!’ And she was on the point, the very point, Blanche, of insisting on our ‘making friends,’ as she called it, when Lady Hebe came up about some books or something, and I managed to get out of the way. That was why I was fidgeting so to get hold of you. Blanchie, I won’t be treated like that. I wish we had never gone to that horrid tea-meeting.”
Blanche looked distressed.
“And yet, Stasy,” she said, “you were the one to want to make friends out of school, so to say, with some of the Blissmore girls – the very same class as those here, some of them actually relations.”
“Not all of the same class,” said Stasy; “some of them are much more ladies, only poor. And, besides, that would have been quite different, don’t you see, Blanchie? It would have been me, or us, being kind to them – not us being put on a level with them, as that Mrs Harrowby wanted to do. But I don’t think she will try that sort of thing again, with me, at least.”
“How did the girls take what you said?” her sister inquired quietly.
Stasy seemed a little uncomfortable.
“Oh well, you know, it wasn’t pleasant for them either. The dark one – she’s much cleverer and quicker than the pretty, stupid, fair one – the dark one looked very grave, and I think she got a very little red.”
“Poor girl!” said Blanche – and something in her tone made Stasy wince – “I daresay she did. They did not deserve to be punished, that I can see.”
“I never said they did, unless – well, if they are to be counted the same as us, they should have tried to be kind and ‘neighbourly.’ How I do detest that word! It is so inconsistent. You seem to think I should have been gushing over with amiability to them, just because they have not even been honestly, vulgarly kind. Not that we wanted anything of the sort, of course. We are completely and entirely independent of them.”
“Yes; and for that very reason you could well have afforded to be simply courteous. You may be pretty sure that if they have not called, it has been that they thought we should not like it; and I don’t say that we are in any way bound to make friends with people whose interests are quite different from ours, and who would have very little in common with us. But it could have done no sort of harm to have spoken pleasantly to them, and even to have walked home together, that I can see.”
Stasy did not reply. She was beginning to feel rather ashamed of herself. Had she behaved “snobbishly?” Her cheeks burned at the thought of having appeared to do so: I fear her first misgiving dealt more with this possible “appearing,” than with the actual wrong or contemptibleness of her feelings. Blanche walked on silently. She was thinking to herself how the same spirit came out in different positions. There was Stasy, now, sixteen-years-old Stasy, showing already the same worldly narrow-mindedness, which, had not Blanche’s own dignity and self-respect been of exceptional quality, might have mortified her not a little when shown to herself by Lady Marth.
“I would not tell Stasy of it at present, on any account,” she thought; “but some day I shall let her know how curiously the two incidents came together, and let her draw her own deductions.”
But she was sorry for Stasy too. She was at all times very tender of her sister’s faults and follies, and intensely sympathising in her troubles. So she exerted herself to disperse the little cloud of mortification which had gathered on Stasy’s face; and when the two entered the library, where their mother was waiting for them, they were both bright and cheerful, and ready to relate to her all the incidents of the afternoon which were likely to interest her.
“Lady Marth was there, you say?” she inquired. “I did not know she was likely to belong to the girls’ guild, or whatever you call it. I don’t know that I should have cared to let you go had I thought she would be there.”
Blanche looked rather surprised.
“Why, mamma, what does it matter? Do you mean because she has not called?”
“Not exactly. But she is the sort of woman who, unless she takes it into her head to be civil to people, can be – very much the reverse. And” – Mrs Derwent’s face hardened a little – “I don’t want you and Stasy, my darlings, to be exposed to that kind of thing. Aunt Grace hinted at something of the kind, and since then I have remembered who Lady Marth is. She belongs to a family of no ancestry, but which has become rapidly prominent through a mixture of cleverness and good luck. They – her people, the Banfleets – are now enormously rich, and pride themselves on their extreme exclusiveness. They are plus royalistes que le roi.”
“How detestable!” said Stasy, “and how contemptible! I am sure I don’t want to know them.”
“You can’t call them really contemptible,” said her mother. “They are a very talented family, in several directions too. And they are very generous and liberal and honourable. But this one weakness – the trying to be just the one thing they are not – spoils them.”
“And, very likely, if they were of very old descent, they would care less about it,” said Blanche reflectively.
“Perhaps so, but that does not always follow. Sir Conway Marth is a much wider-minded man, but not specially clever. And he is of a very old family. I used to know his sisters. They were thoroughly nice; more like that girl you have taken such a fancy to – his ward, I mean,” said Mrs Derwent. “But we cannot expect to know her in an ordinary way if she lives with the Marths. I wish – ” And then she hesitated, while a troubled look crept over her face.
Blanche, who was sitting next her, took her hand and fondled it softly.
“I know what you are going to say, mother dear,” she said, “and you are not to say it. Everything you have done has been for the best, and with the best motives, and you are just not to wish it undone. We have a mass of things to be grateful for and happy about, and why should we worry about things that, through no fault of ours, don’t come in our way.”
“Some of them may come in our way,” said Stasy, whoso versatile spirits had already gone up again. “I shouldn’t wonder if that nice, ugly Miss Milward were to call on us, and ask us to go to see her. – Oh Blanchie, there’s Flopper rushing about over the flower-beds; he really must be tied up, till he sobers down a little.”
“Run out and tie him up, then,” said Blanche, and off Stasy set. Flopper was a new acquisition; a very interesting and aggravating retriever puppy, with all the charms and foibles of puppyhood intensely developed in him. Looking after Flopper was very wholesome for Stasy, her sister had discovered.
Blanche turned again to her mother.
“Mamma dear,” she said, “I really think we must not get into the way of seeing the worst side of things. If we are a little lonely, any way we have each other, and such a charming home. Could any one picture to themselves a sweeter room than this library? How our French friends would admire it!”
“Yes,” said Mrs Derwent, “it is a delightful room. Of course, the name is rather inappropriate, we have so few books.”
“We must get some more,” said Blanche; “by degrees, of course.”
“I fear it must be by degrees,” said her mother; “I cannot afford anything for the house at present, it has cost so much more than I expected. And there seems some little difficulty about our income still; the new partners are asking for longer time to pay us out in, and it will make it difficult to get good investments if the capital is realised so irregularly.”
“I don’t understand about it,” said Blanche. “But it doesn’t matter for the present. When Stasy is grown up, it would be nice to take her about a little; perhaps to London now and then, if by that time we have made some friends there. Mamma, couldn’t we invite some of our old friends to come to stay with us a little – Madame de Caillemont, for instance?”
“She is too frail now, I fear, to come so far,” said Mrs Derwent. “And as for any one else – no, I don’t feel as if I should like it. Do not think me small or childish, Blanchie, but – you know French peoples ideas? They are all already expecting, from one day to another, to hear of your making some grand marriage; they thought a good deal of us as well-connected English people, you know. And, I confess, it would mortify me for them, any of them, to see how – how completely ‘out of it all’ we are.”
“Poor little mother!” said Blanche caressingly, “you really mustn’t get gloomy. You don’t think I want to marry and leave you, do you? I can’t imagine such a thing. I cannot in my wildest dreams picture to myself the going away from you and Stasy! Never mind about that; but I do understand that you would feel rather sore at any friends thinking we were more friendless here than in France. There is no need to invite any one at present. I think I had a vague idea that it might cheer you up a little. This house is so pretty; I should enjoy showing it off.”
“I should like you to have the pleasure of doing so,” said Mrs Derwent wistfully. “You are always so sweet, my Blanchie. I can’t help feeling as if nothing and nobody would be good enough for you; the faintest idea of any one in the very least looking down upon you is – ”
“Mother dear, it is not that. These people don’t know us, or anything about us. There is nothing mortifying or worth minding that I can see in people’s ignoring you, when they know nothing about you. And as for rudeness – that always lowers the rude person, not the object of it.”
Mrs Derwent looked up quickly.
“You don’t mean that any one has been actually rude to you, Blanchie? Was there anything this afternoon?”
Blanche hesitated. She was incapable of uttering a word that was not true; yet, again, she was determined to tell her mother nothing of Lady Marth’s impertinence.
“Mamma,” she said, “I am thinking a great deal about Stasy. She was rude, at least it was tacitly rude, this afternoon,” and she related the incident we know of.
“It was unladylike and unkind,” said Mrs Derwent. “Yes, I am anxious about Stasy. This uncertain position that we have got into is bad for her in every way.”
“It may all come right,” said Blanche cheerfully. “But I am glad you think I spoke properly to Stasy. Let us hope it will all come right, mamma, if we do our best to be kind and good.”