Blanche: A Story for Girls

“Don’t make such a fuss, Blanchie,” came in Herty’s familiar, high-pitched voice, sweet as music to his sister’s ears, despite his ingratitude. “Please put me down,” he went on, to the person who was carrying him; “I’m sure I can walk now. I don’t like to look like a baby.”

“I’m sure you can’t walk, my little man,” was the reply. “But you may try for yourself if you like,” and the person he addressed carefully lowered the child to the ground, while Blanche, for the first time turning her attention to him, recognised in Herty’s bearer the young man she had met twice before – at Alderwood, and since then at Pinnerton Vicarage, and who had been introduced to her as Mr Archibald Dunstan.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, lifting his cap as soon as his hand was free. “I’m afraid we’ve given you a fright, but – ”

“I was frightened for a moment,” said Blanche, half apologetically, “but now I must thank you. Has Herty hurt himself? Where did you find him?”

Mr Dunstan did not at once reply; he was looking at the child, who had grown very white, and nearly fell.

“There now,” he said. “It’s all very well to be plucky, but I told you you couldn’t manage for yourself,” and he put his arm round the little fellow. – “Don’t be alarmed, Miss Derwent,” he went on; “it’s only slight, I think – a sprained ankle; but the pain would be worse if it were bad. He was chatting quite cheerfully as we came along just now. I think the best thing to be done is for me to carry him home, if you’ll allow me to do so.”

“Thank you, oh thank you so much,” said Blanche. “Our house is just on the other side of the gate. I will run on and open it. We are rather busy this afternoon – Lady Hebe’s girls are having tea in the garden, and I shouldn’t like my mother to be frightened. So perhaps if you can carry Herty straight to the house, that would be the best.”

“Certainly,” said Mr Dunstan, passing through the gate as she held it open. “It is unlucky that this should have happened when you’re all so busy.”

But his tone was remarkably cheerful in spite of his expressions of sympathy. And Herty, now comfortably ensconsed again on the young man’s shoulder, began his explanations.

“I was stretching up for a splendid spray of ivy,” he said. “There was a sort of ditch, and I lost my balance and rolled in. And when I tried to get up, my foot hurt me so, I couldn’t stand. So I had to lie down, but I shouted a lot. And at last, after ever so long, he came. – Wouldn’t it have been dreadful if you hadn’t?” he went on, patting Mr Dunstan affectionately: he had evidently taken a great fancy to his rescuer. “Do you think I’d have had to stay there all night?”

“It was lucky, indeed,” said Blanche. “There is a short cut through the woods from Alderwood to East Moddersham, isn’t there? You live at Alderwood, do you not? I suppose you were going to East Moddersham. You can go back the other way round if you like.”

She spoke quite simply, a little faster perhaps than was usual with her, thanks to her late excitement and present relief. But there was no sort of curiosity or arrière pensée in her questions.

What then – or was it her fancy? – what made the young man’s colour deepen slightly as she put them to him? She was almost sure it was so, though he was rather sunburnt, which made it more difficult to judge.

“Thank you,” he said. “Yes, I was bound for East Moddersham. That is to say, not exactly – but – I promised to see Lady Hebe this afternoon,” and as he looked up with the last words, Blanche caught a twinkle of fun in his eyes.

They were very nice eyes – honest grey eyes; she had not noticed them before. And after glancing at them, she turned her own away in some perplexity.

“Lady Hebe is here,” she said. “I don’t think she can be expecting you. It has been settled for some time that she was to come.”

“Ah then, perhaps you – Mrs Derwent, that is to say – will allow me to speak to her – Lady Hebe – in your garden. That will save my needing to go to East Moddersham. Sir Conway is away, and my calls on Lady Marth are never pressing.”

“He is rather queer,” thought Blanche. “I know he and Lady Hebe are very old friends, but I really don’t think she is expecting him this afternoon.”

Mr Dunstan, however, seemed quite satisfied. He spoke cheerfully to Herty, asking him if his foot pained him still, and assuring him that it would soon be all right again.

“Shall I have to have the doctor?” asked the boy. “I don’t like doctors. The old one at home made me stay in bed when it was so hot. I am sure it made me much iller.”

“Oh, our doctors here aren’t like that,” said Archie. “They’re very jolly fellows. But perhaps you won’t need one. I’ll have a look at your ankle if your sister will allow me. I’m a bit of a doctor myself.”

Blanche did not speak.

“Blanchie, don’t you hear?” said Herty, with a touch of querulousness. “It would be much nicer not to have a proper doctor.”

“Very well, dear, we’ll see,” she replied tranquilly. “Mr Dunstan is very kind.”

Chapter Thirteen

Millinery

She had spoken in rather a conventional tone, but she was really touched when they got to the house, by Mr Dunstan’s extreme gentleness and concern for the boy. He put Herty on the couch in the library, which they found unoccupied, and got his boot and stocking off as skilfully as a surgeon could have done. It was not very bad, but it was a sprain, undoubtedly; and after Blanche, under Archies directions, had applied cold water bandages, and obtained Herty’s promise to lie perfectly still, she went out to the garden, followed by Mr Dunstan, to explain to her mother and Stasy what had happened.

“I will send Aline in, to look after you, Herty,” she said, “if she can possibly be spared.”

Tea was about coming to an end when the two left the house. After all, Blanche had scarcely been missed, for all that had passed since she went to the wood gate to look for her little brother, had taken but a short time, and everybody in the garden was very busy.

But now there came a breathing-space, and more than one began to ask what had become of Miss Derwent.

“I wonder if she has gone off to look for Herty, and indeed I wonder what can have happened to him,” said Stasy, with sudden anxiety. For in the bustle she had forgotten about her little brother.

She was standing beside Hebe as she spoke, and Hebe looked up to answer her.

“I hope – ” she began, then stopped abruptly.

“There is your sister,” she said, but a curious expression came over her face, as she went on, “and – Archie Dunstan. – What an intrusion! How dared he?” she went on, to herself, in a lower tone. Stasy did not catch the words. She only saw the annoyance, almost indignation, on Hebe’s face.

But the next few minutes cleared up a good deal. Blanche hastened to her mother to tell of Herty’s accident and Mr Dunstan’s kindness, and Mrs Derwent was, naturally, eager in her thanks. Then she hurried in to see her boy for herself, and Blanche turned to Mr Dunstan.

“You said you wanted to see Lady Hebe; she is over there – standing by the other table.”

“Oh yes, thank you,” he answered. But he did not seem in any desperate hurry to speak to his old friend.

“I was thinking,” he began again, “that I might perhaps be of use about the doctor. It may be erring on the safe side to let him have a look at the boy’s ankle. I am driving home from East Moddersham, so I could easily stop at Blissmore on the way.”

“Thank you,” said Blanche. “I will see what my mother says.”

“Does she want to get rid of me?” thought Archie to himself.

However that may have been, Miss Derwent certainly gave him no excuse for lingering near her, so he strolled across to where Hebe was standing alone for the moment, as the girls had again dispersed.

She would not refuse to shake hands with him, but her usually sunny eyes were sparkling with indignation.

“Archie,” she said, before he had time to speak, “I could not have believed this of you. If you call it a good joke, I don’t!”

Archie looked at her calmly.

“My dear little lady,” he said, with kindly condescension, “it is not like you to pass judgment on a matter which you know nothing about.”

“I do know about it,” said Hebe. “I know what you said to me – that by hook or by crook you would manage to get here to-day. How you have managed it, I don’t know. I only know that you were not justified in doing anything of the kind.”

“I don’t allow that,” said Archie, nettled in spite of his coolness. “As it happens, my relation, at whose house I am staying, is the only person who has been decently civil to the Derwents at all.”

The colour mounted to Hebe’s face.

“You needn’t taunt me with that,” she said quickly. “I am not responsible, as you well know, for what Josephine does or does not do.”

“Did I say you were?” he replied, raising his eyebrows. “Nor do I take my own stand on my aunt’s behaviour in the matter. If you’ll be so good as to listen, I will tell you how I have come to be here to-day,” and he quickly related what had happened.

Hebe’s face relaxed.

“It is very extraordinary,” she said, half to herself. “And what were you doing prowling about the woods, pray?” she said, unable altogether to suppress a smile.

“Waiting for what fate might throw in my way,” he answered calmly.

Just then they caught sight of Mrs Derwent’s figure coming towards them. Archie started forward.

“If I thought he was in earnest!” thought Hebe to herself, as she followed him more deliberately.

Mr Dunstan’s offer of sending the doctor was accepted, as Herty still seemed in considerable pain, and soon after the whole party dispersed; Archie accompanying Hebe and Miss Milward to East Moddersham, where he had ordered his dog-cart to meet him.

Herty’s sprain proved no very serious matter; but during the next fortnight or so, it formed a plausible excuse for Mr Dunstan’s calling now and then to inquire how he was, and to bring him once or twice books or toys to amuse him while he had to lie still.

Mrs Derwent took a great liking to the young man, and so did Stasy, but he did not seem to get to know Blanche any better. Indeed, on one or two occasions he came and went without seeing her at all. Still, his visits made a little break in the monotony of life at Pinnerton Lodge. During the week or two, also, which preceded the East Moddersham family’s removal to town for the season, there were occasional meetings with Hebe at the vicarage, to discuss guild matters, into which Blanche threw herself with great thoroughness. Mrs Derwent, always sanguine, began to feel more cheerful as to things in general brightening by degrees.

But when Lady Hebe had left, and Mr Dunstan had no longer any excuse for lingering – Alderwood also being shut up – life seemed to return much to what it had been.

“I really don’t know what I shall do with myself,” said Stasy one day, “when the time comes for me to give up my regular lessons. I almost wish you were not so contented, Blanche; it is really rather irritating. If you would grumble too, things wouldn’t seem so bad.”

Blanche laughed.

“Do you know, I really don’t feel inclined to grumble,” she said, “especially now that I’ve got more to do I do find looking after these girls very interesting indeed.”

“You’re a prig,” said Stasy – “a prig or a saint; I’ve not yet made up my mind which.”

Blanche took no notice.

“Stasy,” she said, “I have got an idea in my head. It’s not quite a new one; some one proposed it before; but I can’t manage it unless you’ll help me, you’re so much cleverer about that sort of thing than I am.”

“What sort of thing?” said Stasy.

“Things that require neat-handedness and taste. It’s a millinery class for the girls I’m thinking of. It would be such a surprise to Lady Hebe when she comes back, to see them with neat, pretty hats. It is just the time they’re getting their summer ones, and they do wear such awful things.”

“And I daresay they pay a lot for them, too,” said Stasy.

“No doubt they do,” said Blanche; “and I don’t suppose one of them has the slightest idea of trimming anything neatly.”

Stasy was silent for a moment; then she said, with a little hesitation: “You’re very complimentary about my taste, Blanchie. But as to the actual work, I’m afraid I should not be much good. I know nothing about what may be called the ‘technique’ of the business. I couldn’t line or bind a hat neatly, for instance.”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Blanche eagerly; and, indeed, a great part of her interest in this new idea had to do with the occupation and amusement she had hoped it would give her sister. “I’ve thought about that, and I feel pretty sure that little Miss Halliday would help us. I’m going to Blissmore this afternoon, and I mean to ask her if she would teach us a little. Two or three lessons would give us all we need.”

Stasy brightened up.

“That would really be great fun,” she said. “Do let me go with you, Blanchie. Can we pay her for teaching us, do you think? Won’t it be at all like poaching on her manor?”

“Oh no,” said Blanche. “These girls are not the class who would ever get things from her; and, of course, however clever we become, we mustn’t leave off giving her our own work. That is to say, everything we don’t get from London. She will quite enter into it, I feel sure.”

And that very afternoon Blanche’s idea was carried out. They walked into Blissmore, and went to see Miss Halliday, who was always delighted to have a glimpse of them; and when Blanche unfolded her plan, the little milliner entered into it heartily.

“Of course,” said Blanche, “you must count it as if you were really giving us lessons. It would be quite unfair to take up your time for nothing.”

Miss Halliday hesitated, grew rather pink and nervous.

“I wish, I am sure, I could refuse any payment,” she said at last. “But to tell you the truth, Miss Derwent, things have not been going very well with me lately. There is a great increase of work in Blissmore, as new families keep coming, and, rather than lose the chance of increasing my customers, I had made up my mind to take a partner. After a great deal of inquiry and writing about it, I found what seemed the very person, unexceptionable in every way. She was to put a little money into the concern, and, above all, was said to be extremely clever and tasteful. Just what I wanted! For, you see, there is no denying that I may be getting a little old-fashioned; though I do think my work is always neat, and I use good materials. So I had my shop enlarged a little, and fresh painted, and a new mirror, and altogether went to a good deal of expense, when, just at the last moment, this poor girl – I can’t find it in my heart to blame her – had a sudden call to Australia, owing to some family troubles. I could have held her to the bargain, or made her pay up, but it went against me to do it, so I let her off. That was nearly two months ago, and here have I been ever since trying to find some one else. The season getting on too, more work coming in than I can manage, not daring to refuse any, for fear of it getting about, and leading to some other milliners starting!”

And Miss Halliday wiped away a tear which she could not altogether repress.

The sisters were full of sympathy.

“Poor Miss Halliday!” said Blanche, “I am so sorry.”

“I wish we could help you,” said Stasy impulsively. “Perhaps if you find us very clever, after you’ve taught us a little, we might come down now and then and help you, as if we were apprentices, you know! Wouldn’t it be fun, Blanchie?”

“Bless you, my love,” said the old maid, wiping away another tear. “It is good of you to have such a thought, though, of course, I couldn’t so presume. I’m sure you’ll learn very quickly, having been brought up in France, where, they say, good taste comes with the air. Indeed, I have been thinking of trying for a French young person as a partner, and I once thought of consulting your dear mamma about it.”

“I can tell her what you say,” said Blanche. “But I scarcely think she would advise it. It’s a risk to bring any one so far, and as for what you say of French taste – well, I don’t know – in Paris, perhaps; but one sees plenty of vulgar ugliness in the provinces.”

“Indeed, Miss,” said the milliner, considerably impressed. “Well, I might be safer with an English girl, after all. And thank you, more than I can say, for your kind sympathy. Your visit has quite cheered me – it has indeed. You’ll let me make you a cup of tea before you go. It’ll be ready directly in your own parlour – we always call the drawing-room your own room since you were here, we do indeed.” And the little woman started up in her eager hospitality.

“We’ll stay to tea on one condition, Miss Halliday,” said Stasy – “that is, that if you do find us clever, you’ll promise to let us come and help you after our lessons with you are over.”

“My dear Miss Anastasia,” began Miss Halliday.

“Oh, but you must promise,” said Stasy. “It’s not all out of kindness that I want it! It would be something to do – some fun! I only wish you’d let me serve in the shop a little, it’s so dreadfully dull at Pinnerton, you don’t know.”

Miss Halliday’s face expressed commiseration.

“I’m sorry for that,” said she. “I was hoping that, when you got settled down, you’d feel quite at home, and find it more lively. But, of course, about now most of the families are going up to London.”

“That doesn’t make much difference to us,” said Stasy. “If you want to know, Miss Halliday, I think English people are horribly unfriendly and disagreeable.”

The milliner looked uncomfortable; she had delicacy enough to know that any distinct expression of sympathy in such a case would be an impertinence.

“You may find it pleasanter in the winter,” she said. “There are some nice young ladies in your neighbourhood – Lady Hebe Shetland at East Moddersham, now! She is a sweet young lady.”

“Yes,” said Blanche, speaking for the first time. “We know her a little, but still it is quite different from what it used to be when mamma was a girl here.”

“Well yes, to be sure,” said Miss Halliday, “for it was your dear mamma’s home; and no one was more respected in all the country-side, as I’ve heard my aunt say, than your dear grandpapa, the late Mr Fenning. It was quite a different thing in the next vicars time; his wife and daughters were not, so to say, in the county society at all.”

“Do you mean the Flemings?” asked Blanche; “yes, I have heard of them. I hope people don’t confuse mamma with them; sometimes I’ve been afraid they may do.”

Miss Halliday grew a little pink again.

“Well, Miss, as you’ve mentioned it,” she said, “though I wouldn’t have made free to speak of it myself, I’m afraid there may have been some mistake of the kind in one or two quarters, and seeing that it was so, I made bold to set it right; telling those that had made the mistake, that your dear mamma came of a very high family indeed, as my dear aunt has often told me, and that on both sides.”

Blanche could not help smiling, though she was touched by the little milliner’s loyalty.

“Thank you, Miss Halliday,” she said. “I should certainly be sorry for mamma’s family to be confused with the Flemings, not so much because they were – well, scarcely gentlepeople by birth – but because they were not particularly nice in themselves. It is misleading that the two names are so like, and I am glad you explained it.”

“I won’t mention names,” said Miss Halliday, beaming with satisfaction; “but it will all come right in the end, you will see, my dear young ladies. And now I think tea must be ready in the drawing-room, if you’ll be so good as to step that way.”

“But you are going to have tea with us,” said Stasy. “It would be no fun if you didn’t. And we have to settle the day for our first lesson; and you’ve never been out to see our house yet, Miss Halliday. Mamma sent a special message about that.”

“What a good little soul she is!” said Blanche, as Stasy and she were walking home together.

“Yes, isn’t she?” said Stasy. “Blanche,” she went on, thoughtfully, after a moment’s pause, “do you ever think how nice it would be to be really very rich? Not just comfortable, as we are, but really rich, with lots to give away. What nice things one could do for other people! We could pay for a very clever assistant for Miss Halliday, for instance, so that she might get to be quite a grand milliner, and the people here would go to her for their bonnets instead of sending to London.”

Blanche laughed.

“We should have to frank her over to Paris also once or twice a year. Fancy Miss Halliday in Paris!” she said. “However beautiful her bonnets were, no one could believe in her unless she went to Paris. Yes, it would be very nice to be able to do things like that. But, on the other hand – ” She stopped, and seemed to be thinking.

“What were you going to say?” asked Stasy.

“I was only thinking,” Blanche replied, “how little we can realise what it must be to be poor. To feel that one’s actual daily bread – food and clothes and common necessaries – depend on one’s work. I suppose, however, it does not seem hard or depressing to those who have always been accustomed to it.”

“I have thought of it sometimes,” said Stasy. “I’m not sure that there wouldn’t be a sort of pleasure about it. It would be very interesting and exciting. What I dislike most is the being nobody in particular, neither one thing nor the other, as we have rather felt ourselves here! Nothing specially to do, and no feeling that it would matter if you didn’t do it. That is so dull.”

“I suppose,” said Blanche thoughtfully again, “that things to do, things that you feel you could do better than any one else could do them, always do turn up sooner or later if one really wants to use one’s life well.”

“Oh,” said Stasy, with a touch of impatience. “I don’t look at things in such a grand way as you do, Blanchie. I want to get some fun out of life, and, after all, I’m not difficult to please. My spirits have gone up ever so high, just with the idea of learning millinery and teaching the girls, and perhaps helping good little Miss Halliday. Blanchie, don’t you think we might plan some kind of hats that the guild girls would look very nice in – something that Lady Hebe would be sure to notice when she comes back. Perhaps if we ordered a lot of them untrimmed, you know, and got ribbon and things, we could let the girls have them more cheaply than they could buy them. There’d be no harm in that, would there? Of course, I know the guild isn’t supposed to be at all a charity – ”

“We may be able to do something of the kind,” said Blanche. “But it wouldn’t do to have them all the same, or even very like each other. The girls wouldn’t care for it, and it would make a sort of show-off of the guild. We must think about it; and I want them to learn to trim their mothers’ bonnets and caps and their younger sisters’ things, as well as their own.”

Chapter Fourteen

Monsieur Bergeret’s Letter

The millinery lessons were begun and steadily carried on without the interest of either of the sisters flagging. For, in spite of Stasy’s capriciousness, there was a good of real material in her: she would have despised herself for not carrying out any plan she had formed. And she was not disappointed in her expectation of getting some “fun” out of this new pursuit. It was a pleasure to her to find how deft and neat-handed a little practice made her. Taste in harmonising and blending colours, and a quick eye for graceful form, she had by nature.

Miss Halliday was full of admiration.

“There’s nothing more I can teach you, young ladies,” she said, at the end of a fortnight, during which time they had had about half-a-dozen lessons. “Miss Stasy – if it wasn’t impertinent to say so – I would call you a born milliner. Now, I never would have thought of putting violets with that brown velvet, never! And yet there’s no denying they go most beautifully, and you do make the ribbons and trimmings go so far, too. I’ve always been told it was the best of French work that it’s so light – never overloaded. – And Miss Derwent, you are so neat; indeed, if I might say so, almost too particular.”

Blanche smiled.

“I haven’t got such fairy fingers as Stasy, I know,” she said admiringly, “though perhaps I could beat her at plain-sewing. Yes, I have run on that lace too heavily, I see. Well, and so you think we’re ready now to teach our girls, Miss Halliday, do you?”