Miss Halliday looked deeply interested, but she was too well-bred a little woman to ask questions.
“If you were here a good many years ago, madam,” she said, “you may remember my aunt, Mrs Finch, whom I succeeded. She had a nice little millinery business, and I came to her as a learner. Things had gone badly at home, after my dear old father died, and I was very glad to have the chance my aunt offered me. That was about seven years ago. There’s been many changes here even since then, but the most of the building had begun before I came.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Derwent, “I had not heard anything of it. I was quite astonished to find how the school had increased. Mrs Finch, did you say? Oh yes, I remember her very well, but she did not live here – not in this house.”
“No,” said Miss Halliday, “my aunt lived in the Market Place – a small corner house. But we got on pretty well, and then we moved here to join apartments to the millinery. So many ladies disliked the hotels: they were noisy and rough. And it’s answered pretty well on the whole.”
“Then your aunt is dead, I suppose,” said Mrs Derwent. “She must have been a good age, for when I remember her, she had already quite white hair and stooped a good deal. She used to retrim and alter my hats very nicely, and I remember how interested she was when my new ones came down from London. I was – my unmarried name was Fenning. My father was the rector of Fotherley, the village near Alderwood.”
Miss Halliday looked delighted at having her curiosity thus satisfied.
“Oh indeed, madam,” she said. “I’m sure I’ve heard my aunt speak of the late Mr Fenning. When I first came to Blissmore, the vicar of Fotherley was a Mr Fleming, and I recollect my aunt drawing a contrast, if you’ll excuse my naming it, between that gentleman and his predecessor.”
Mrs Derwent smiled.
“Yes,” she said, “by all accounts there was a very marked contrast.”
Then Deborah appeared to say that the fire was burning up nicely in the best parlour, and thither the ladies repaired to rest and talk. Blanche, the foreseeing, had taken the precaution of bringing a bag with a few necessary articles “just in case we were kept too late,” and Miss Halliday was only too ready to lend anything she could, so the prospects for the night were not very alarming.
Altogether, the spirits of the little family improved; and when Miss Halliday’s neatly prepared little supper made its appearance, they drew their chairs round the table, prepared to do full justice to it.
“I really think,” said Mrs Derwent for the second time that day, “that we have been very lucky. It is nice to have found out these lodgings. We could stay here quite comfortably for a few weeks while the house is getting ready.”
“It would certainly be much less expensive than a London hotel,” said Blanche. “Yes, I do hope we may get to like Blissmore, if all goes through about the house.”
“You mean you hope we shall like Pinnerton Lodge,” said Stasy. “We needn’t have anything to do with Blissmore, except, of course, that it will be our station and post-town. And I suppose we shall do a little shopping here. But, of course, we shall not know any Blissmore people. Mamma, I wish you’d begin to look up some of your old friends. That big place now, near us – East Moddersham. Didn’t you know those people long ago?”
Mrs Derwent shook her head.
“It was as good as shut up in those days,” she said. “The Marths were scarcely ever there, as the then Lady Marth was very delicate. – Do the present owners of East Moddersham live there much, do you know?” she inquired of Miss Halliday, who just then re-entered the room to see that her guests had all they wanted.
“Sir Conway and Lady Marth?” she replied. “Oh yes, they are there most of the year; they have several sons, some grown up and some still at school, and one quite little daughter. They are very much liked and highly thought of in the county.”
“And,” began Blanche, “there is a grown-up girl, is there not? A niece or a ward of Sir Conway’s?” Miss Halliday’s face grew still brighter.
“Lady Hebe, Miss, you must mean; Lady Hebe Shetland. Yes, she is their ward, and Sir Conway’s niece too. A great heiress, and to my mind the most beautiful and charming young lady in all the country round. Her face makes one think of everything sweet and pleasant.”
“And happy,” said Blanche. “I never did see any one look so happy.”
“She has everything to make her so,” said Miss Halliday. “But that wouldn’t do it without a happy nature.”
“How old is she?” asked Stasy abruptly.
“Nineteen, I think, Miss. They do say she is engaged to young Mr Milward, a fine young gentleman, and well suited to her. But I don’t know if it is true.”
“Do you mean the Milwards of Crossburn?” said Mrs Derwent.
“Yes; that is where they live, I believe,” was the reply.
“I hope it’s not true that that girl of Blanche’s is engaged,” said Stasy, later in the evening, after she had been sitting silent for some time.
“Why?” said her sister, looking up in surprise; “what difference could it make to us?”
“All the difference. If she were married, she’d go away to a home of her own, and we would never see her. But living there, so near, she would be a nice friend for us. She is just about your age, Blanchie.”
“Well,” said Blanche, “we shall see. It is not even certain yet that we are going to live at Pinnerton at all.”
“I’m sure we shall. I have a presentiment that we shall,” said Stasy oracularly.
Chapter Six
The Doctor’s Wife
Stasy’s presentiment came true. The reports of the builder the next morning, when he called to enter into particulars with Mrs Derwent, were favourable; and later in the day the mother and daughters returned to London with very little doubt in their minds as to their future home being Pinnerton Lodge.
London looked very grim and dreary after the clear fine sky in the country, and Stasy shivered at the thought of how many days must yet forcibly be spent there, before they could install themselves in their new quarters.
But the things we dread are not always those that come to pass. Mrs Derwent, as I have said, was in some ways extremely inexperienced in English life and rates of expenses. Busy and eager about the arrangements for their new house, she put off asking for her hotel bill till fully a fortnight after the little party’s arrival in London. And when she received it and glanced at the total, she was aghast!
“Blanche, my dear,” she exclaimed, “just look at this. Is it not tremendous? Why, we might have lived at a hotel at home for nearly a year for what this fortnight has cost us!”
“Not quite that, mamma,” said Blanche, smiling, though her own fair face was flushed with annoyance. “But, no doubt, it is very dear. And yet we seem to have lived plainly enough. Mamma,” she went on decidedly, “we mustn’t stay here; that is quite certain. All you have got in reserve for furnishing our house and paying for the alterations will be wasted, and what should we do then?”
Mrs Derwent sat silent, considering.
“You are quite right, dear,” she said at last. “We must look out for lodgings. But I have a horror of London lodgings. They are so often detestable.”
“Why stay in London at all?” said Stasy suddenly from her corner of the room, where, though engrossed with a story-book, her quick ears had been caught by the sound of vexation in her mother’s voice. “I am sure it is horrid – so dull, and knowing nobody. Why shouldn’t we go down to Blissmore, to that nice little Miss Halliday’s, and stay there till the house is ready? We meant to go there for the last week or two, anyway.”
Blanche’s face lighted up, and she looked at her mother anxiously. But Mrs Derwent hesitated.
“It would certainly be comfortable enough,” she said; “quite as comfortable as here. But to stay there for so long – for several weeks? Is it not rather lowering? I don’t want to get mixed up with Blissmore people: they must be a very heterogeneous society; not like in the old days when there were just a very few thoroughly established people living in the town, whom everybody knew and respected.”
“I don’t see that we need know people we don’t want to know, any more when living in the town than in the neighbourhood,” said Blanche. “We can keep quite to ourselves; unless, of course, you can look up some of your old friends, who would understand how we were placed.”
Mrs Derwent seemed perplexed.
“I wish I could,” she said, “but I scarcely know how to begin. There seems nothing but changes. It is such a disappointment about dear old Sir Adam to start with.”
“Still we are gaining nothing in that way by remaining in London,” said Blanche. “And when at Blissmore you can find out about the people you used to know, and perhaps write to them.”
“I can find out about them, certainly,” Mrs Derwent agreed. “But I don’t think I should actually write or suggest any one’s calling, till we are in our own house, and have everything nice and settled. People are so prejudiced. They would immediately begin saying we lived poorly or messily because we had been so long in France.”
“I don’t think any one could live ‘messily’ in Miss Halliday’s house if they tried. It is so beautifully neat,” said Stasy, who had taken a great fancy to their little landlady. “Do let us go there, mamma. I am so tired of being here. London is horrid in winter, especially if you have no friends. And why should you and Blanche worry about the hotel bills, when there is no need, and none of us want to stay?”
And in the end, as not unfrequently happened – for there was often a good deal of wisdom in her suggestions – Stasy’s proposal was adopted; so that about three weeks after their first arrival in England, the Derwents found themselves settled for the time being at Number Twenty-Nine in the old High Street of Blissmore.
It was not exactly the beginning of life in England which Mrs Derwent had pictured to herself. It was a trifle dreary to be back again, really back again in the immediate neighbourhood of her old home, with no one except Miss Halliday – herself a new-comer in the place – to welcome her and her children, or take the slightest interest in their advent.
“If there had been even one or two of our old servants left somewhere near,” she could not help saying to Blanche that night, when Stasy and little Hertford had gone to bed, in high spirits at having really got away from “that horrid London,” as they both called it. “But every one seems gone that I had to do with,” she concluded, in a depressed tone.
“You really can’t judge yet, mamma,” said Blanche. “You haven’t looked up anybody except Sir Adam Nigel, and you said you would rather wait till we were settled in our own house.”
“I know I did. Oh yes, I daresay it will all be right enough. I am going to make out a list of all the friends I remember, and inquire about them by degrees. Some day soon we must drive over to Fotherley, Blanchie. Just think, I have never even seen your dear grandfather’s grave! I am tired to-night, and everything seems wrong when one is tired.”
Things did brighten up even by the next morning. The weather, though cold, was clear and bracing; very different from the murkiness of London, which had been peculiarly trying to nerves and lungs accustomed to the pure smokeless air of southern France. And the work at Pinnerton Lodge was already begun. It was most interesting to go all over the house again with the delightful sense of proprietorship, planning which rooms should be for what and for whom; how the old furniture would “come in,” and what it would be necessary to add to it. And an occasional day in London, with definite shopping for its object, made Stasy allow that for some things, and in some ways, the great city was not altogether a bad place after all.
Still, though they were not “dull” in the sense of having nothing to do, and feeling in consequence listless and dreary, the little family felt curiously lonely.
Miss Halliday was no gossip – that is to say, she drew the line at the concerns of her visitors, and sternly refused to tell any of her cronies anything about them. And though this rule of hers was well known, still it added a slight element of mystery to her present lodgers, which, in reality, led to more gossip about them than they were in the least aware of. It was not often that visitors stayed so long at Miss Halliday’s; as a rule, her rooms were merely taken as a half-way house for a very few days, by families pitching their tents in the now sought-after little town. And for some time no one knew anything about Pinnerton Lodge, as the distance between it and Blissmore was sufficient, in winter especially, to prevent much passing by. Added to which one of the good qualities of the Otterson and Bewley firm was discretion carried to the limits of surliness, in their determination that all knowledge of their clients’ affairs should be confined to the office itself.
So Blanche and Stasy walked up and down the Blissmore streets, intent on such amount of shopping as Mrs Derwent would allow them to do there, or marched out bravely to Pinnerton and back, however cold it was, rejoicing in the “delightful English freedom,” as Stasy called it, which made it possible for them to do so without any breach of accepted rules, innocent of the remarks and comments their appearance in public called forth.
“I can’t make them out,” said the wife of one of the doctors – Blissmore now rejoiced in four or five, though formerly one and an assistant had been all that was required – the wife, unluckily, of the doctor whose house in the High Street was nearest to Miss Halliday’s. “I can’t make them out. Do they never mean to know anybody or tell who they are? People who have come from abroad should tell all about themselves, or how can they expect any one to notice them.”
Which was, to say the least, a begging-the-question kind of reproach, seeing that in no way had the Derwent family expected, or seemed to expect, the “notice” of Mrs Burgess or any of her coterie!
But it is not only the brave that chance sometimes favours. It favours the idle and inquisitive and the busy-bodies too, now and then. And I am afraid, without judging her too harshly, Mrs Burgess might come under these heads.
The chance was that of Stasy getting a sore throat. It was not a very bad one, but she was rather subject to sore throats, and the change of climate made Mrs Derwent extra cautious about her. It got suddenly worse one evening, and though Stasy was not cowardly or impatient when she was ill, she had to own to feeling pretty bad, and depressing visions of a quinsy she had had on one or two occasions rose before her.
“We must not trifle with it,” her mother decided, and Miss Halliday was summoned and consulted as to sending for the doctor. Her own doctor, the one of oldest standing in the place, was unfortunately away for a few days, she happened to know. But there were others. Mr Meyrick was considered second best, but he lived quite at the other side of the town, and —
“I do not think it is anything complicated,” said Mrs Derwent. “If we were at home” – and she sighed just a little – “I should know how to treat it myself. But I have forgotten the names of English medicaments, and, indeed, I doubt if we could get the herbs and simple drugs here at all. No, it is best to have a doctor. Who is the nearest, Miss Halliday?”
“Mr Burgess lives only a few doors off,” the little woman replied. “And he is clever, I believe.”
“But you don’t like him, I see,” said Mrs Derwent. “Is there anything against him?”
“Oh dear, no. But they – Mr Burgess and his wife – are not like Dr Summers and Miss Summers. Mrs Burgess has the name of chattering a great deal, and rather spitefully sometimes,” Miss Halliday admitted.
The Derwents only smiled.
“That really does not matter,” said the mother. “We shall have nothing to do with the wife. I think you had better send round for Mr Burgess and ask him to look in at once.”
The throat was not a quinsy, but still rather troublesome and painful. Mr Burgess doctored it – or Stasy rather – skilfully enough, and being pleasant and good-tempered, a certain amount of friendliness naturally sprang up between himself and his new patient’s family, including Stasy herself.
“He is not his wife, and you can say anything to a doctor,” she replied to Blanche, when, some days later – by which time Stasy was almost quite well again – the elder sister was remonstrating with her for talking too fast to her new friend, considering the warning they had been given. “Besides, there is no secret about who we are, and where we come from, or anything about us.”
“Certainly not,” said her mother, “but we do not want these Blissmore ladies to begin calling upon us simply out of curiosity, and I did hear you saying to the doctor this morning that it was very dull not to have any friends here. I daresay he will have sense enough not to pay any attention to it, otherwise, it almost sounded like asking his wife to call.”
But Stasy was sure she could not have been so misunderstood, and the subject dropped. Only, however, to be revived more disagreeably when, two days later, Mrs Burgess did call. Her husband was really not to blame for it, but he was an easy-going man, and, by a great show of sympathy “with the poor things,” feeling so lonely as they must be doing, she extracted from him a reluctant half-consent to her taking advantage of his professional acquaintance with the ladies, whose doings had so occupied her empty head.
They were at home, and Deborah, somewhat overcome by the honour of a call from Mrs Burgess, admitted and announced her without hesitation. It was not in lady nature, certainly not in Mrs Derwent’s nature, to be other than perfectly courteous in her own house to any visitor, however little desired, and, as was almost a matter of course with a woman of Mrs Burgess’s calibre, she mistook the gentle gravity with which she was received for somewhat awe-struck gratification at her visit, and speedily proceeded to make herself very much at home, very much at home indeed.
This process consisted of several stages. In the first place, after ensconsing herself in the most comfortable chair – Mrs Burgess had a quick eye for a comfortable chair – and amiably waving her hostess to one conveniently near, and, as she expressed it, on her “best side” – for the doctor’s wife was deaf – she loosened her cloak, remarking that, though cold out-of-doors, it was rather “warm in here,” the ceilings were low, and low rooms get quickly “stuffy.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs Derwent. “I am sorry you find it so. We think these rooms very well ventilated. Old-fashioned, thick-walled houses are often warm in winter as well as cool in summer.”
“Pr’aps so,” said Mrs Burgess, “but I’m all for modern improvements. We’ve done a deal to our house; we’d almost better have rebuilt it. But you’ve been living abroad, I believe. Foreign houses are quite another style of thing, I suppose? Very rough compared with English.”
Mrs Derwent could not repress a smile.
”‘Foreign’ is a wide word,” she said, “if you mean it in the sense of anything or everything not English. No, I cannot say that we have been accustomed to living in very rough ways, and there are many beautiful houses in the south of France.”
“Oh, the south of France!” repeated her visitor, who had not very clearly caught the rest of Mrs Derwent’s speech. “Yes, I suppose that’s very much improved by so many English going over there for the winters. And was it for health, then, that you lived there? These young ladies don’t look so very strong. I must tell Mr Burgess to keep his eye on them – living so near, it would be quite a pleasure. But, oh, I was forgetting. You’re thinking of living out of town a bit?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Derwent. “I have taken a house at Pinnerton Green – Pinnerton Lodge.”
Mrs Burgess screwed up her lips.
“Damp,” she said oracularly. “I don’t hold with all these trees. And these delicate girls – ”
“Thank you, you are very kind,” said Mrs Derwent, more stiffly; “but my daughters are not delicate, and – ”
The only word that caught Mrs Burgess’s ears was the objectionable adjective.
“Of course, of course,” she repeated; “I could see it in a moment. But I’ll tell you what you must do – have the trees thinned. That’s what the Wandles did in their grounds at Pinnerton; they had the trees well thinned, especially at the side of the house, where the children’s windows look out. Mrs Wandle is most kind. I’m sure a word from me, and she’d come to see you and tell you all about it. You don’t know her, of course? Never mind; I’ll ask her to call. You see this is a great tree country, and if you’re not used to – ”
“I know all about this part of the country very well, thank you; and I think it particularly healthy. I was brought up here, and we are not the least afraid of Pinnerton being damp,” said Mrs Derwent, in her irritation adding more than she need have done, or had meant to do.
Mrs Burgess, in her eagerness at some volunteered information, had listened with extra attention.
“You were brought up here?” she exclaimed. “Where? Here, at Blissmore?”
“No; at Fotherley,” Mrs Derwent replied, in a sort of desperation, thinking, perhaps, that the best policy would be to tell all there was to tell, and so get rid of this unwelcome visitor. “My father, Mr Fenning, was the vicar of Fotherley, and I lived there with him till a short time before his death. I married abroad, and have never been in England since.”
“Dear, dear, how very interesting!” Mrs Burgess exclaimed. “I have heard the name, Mr Fleming of Fotherley; though, of course, it was before my time.”
“Fenning, not Fleming,” said Mrs Derwent, who had reason for objecting to this mistake.
“Ah yes; Fleming,” responded Mrs Burgess serenely.
And Mrs Derwent, afraid of beginning to laugh out of sheer nervousness and irritation, gave up the attempt to set her right.
Then followed more cross-questioning, in which the doctor’s wife was almost as great an adept as the smartest of great ladies. She varied her inquiries skilfully from mother to daughters, and back to mother again, till none of the three felt sure what sort of correct or “crooked” answers they had been beguiled into giving, and finally took leave in high good-humour, reiterating at the last that she would not forget to speak to Mrs Wandle; Mrs Derwent might depend upon her. “A word from me will be enough: we are such great friends. I am sure she will call as soon as she hears how anxious you are to see her.”
As the door closed upon her, Mrs Derwent and Blanche looked first at each other, then at Stasy, who put on an expression of extra innocence and indifference. This hardened Blanche’s heart.
“Well, Stasy,” she said, “I hope you are satisfied. See what you have done by telling Mr Burgess we felt dull, and so on.”
“I don’t mind her having called,” said Stasy, determined to keep up a brave front. “I think she is most amusing; and what possible harm can she do us?”
“Every harm of the kind; though, of course, I suppose one should try to be above those things,” said Blanche doubtfully. “But still, we didn’t come to live in England to have as our only friends and companions people we cannot feel in sympathy with. It is not wrong not to want to live among coarse-natured, vulgar-minded people, if it isn’t one’s duty to do so.”
“There are vulgar minds in every class, I fear,” said Mrs Derwent. “Still, that is a different matter. I do wish this had not begun; for I do not like to seem arrogant or ill-natured. And it is very difficult to keep a pushing woman like this Mrs Burgess at a distance, without being really disagreeable to her.”
“We could stand her even,” said Blanche, regretfully. “There would be a sort of excuse for it, as she is the doctor’s wife; but it is all these other awful people she is going to bring down upon us, ‘butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers,’ like the nursery rhyme you used to say, mamma! And if other people – refined people – hear we are in the midst of such society as that, they won’t want to know us. I wish we hadn’t come to Blissmore.”
It was not often that Blanche was so discomposed. Her mother tried to soften matters.
“It will only call for a little tact, my dear,” she said. “I am sure we shall be able to make them understand. It is not as if we were going to live in the town.”
“But Pinnerton Green is a nest of them,” said Blanche.
“That won’t matter so much. Once we are in our own house we can draw our own lines. And when other people – better people – come to see us, these good folk will keep out of the way,” said Mrs Derwent.
“Well, I wish you would look up some of them, mamma,” said Stasy. “For my part, I would rather amuse myself with the Goths and Wandles, than know nobody at all.”
The others could not help laughing; but, nevertheless, Blanche still felt not a little annoyed. She was more concerned for her sister than for herself; for there was a vein in Stasy’s character which sometimes caused her mother and Blanche uneasiness – a love of excitement and amusement at all costs.
“She must have some really good companions,” thought the elder girl.
And that very evening she persuaded her mother to write to Mrs Lilford, Sir Adam Nigel’s niece, recalling herself to that lady’s memory. The letter was addressed to Alderwood, and marked “to be forwarded.”
“I hope something will come of it,” said Blanche. “And you must try to remember some other nice people, mamma; though, if Mrs Lilford is kind, she can do a good deal in the way of introducing us, even though she no longer lives here herself.”