Blanche: A Story for Girls

"Well, dear," said Blanche, "it is an improvement on last night, isn't it?"

"I don't know," said Stasy dubiously. "It's certainly better than fog, but then, fog isn't _always_ there; and this sort of dull grey look is the regular thing in London, I suppose. I have often heard it was like that, but I don't think I quite believed it before."

"But we are not going to live in London," said Blanche, "and the country in some parts of England is very bright and cheerful. Of course, this is the very dullest time of the year; we must remember that. Perhaps it is a good thing to begin at the worst; people say so, but I am not quite sure. There is a great deal in first impressions--bright ones leave an after-glow."

Just then their mother came into the room.

"Isn't it nice that the fog has gone?" she said. "And to me there is something quite exhilarating in the sight of a London street! Dear me, how it carries one back--"

She stood just behind the two girls, and as Blanche glanced round at her, she thought how very pretty her mother still was. Her eyes were so bright, and the slight flush on her cheeks made her look so young.

"You have slept well, mamma, haven't you?" she said affectionately. "You seem quite fresh and energetic."

"Yes, I feel so; and hungry too. I always think London air makes me hungry, even though people abuse it so. Here comes breakfast.--You look well too, Blanchie.--But Stasy, have you not got over your fatigue yet?"

"I don't know," said Stasy. "Perhaps not; everything feels so strange. I don't think I like London, mamma."

Mrs Derwent laughed, but she seemed a little troubled too. Stasy, like herself, was very impressionable, but less buoyant. She had been full of enthusiastic delight at the thought of coming to England, and now she seemed in danger of going to the other extreme.

Blanche darted a somewhat reproachful look at her sister.

"Mamma," she said, "are you going to make some sort of plans? It would be as well to do so at once, don't you think? For if we are to be settled in a home of our own by Christmas, as we have always hoped, there is not much time to lose about finding a house. And if there was nothing at Blissmore--"

"Oh, but there _must_ be something at Blissmore," said Mrs Derwent confidently. "And I quite agree with you, Blanchie, about not losing time. I wonder what is the best thing to do," she went on, consideringly.

The waiter just then entered the room.

"Can you let me see a railway guide?" she asked.

"A Bradshaw, ma'am, or a `Hay, B, C'?" said the man.

"A _what_?" enquired Mrs Derwent, perplexed.

"A `Hay, B, C,'" he repeated. "They are simpler, ma'am, more suited to ladies, begging your pardon."

"Please let me see one, then.--It must be some new kind of guide since my time, I suppose," she added, turning to the others. "I must confess, Bradshaw would be a labyrinth to me. I want to see exactly how long it takes to Blissmore, and if we could get back the same evening." And as the waiter reappeared with the yellow-paper-covered guide in one hand, and the _Morning Post_ in the other, she exclaimed, as soon as she had glanced at the former, "Oh, _what_ a nice guide! B--`Blackheath,' `Blendon'--yes, here it is, `Blissmore.'"

There was silence for a moment or two. Then Mrs Derwent spoke again:

"Yes, I think we can manage it in a day--the first time, at any rate. There is a train at--let me see.--Blanchie, do you hear?"

But Blanche was immersed in the newspaper. The outside column of houses to let had caught her eye.

"Mamma," she said suddenly, "is there more than one Blissmore?" And her fair face looked a little flushed. "If not, it is really a curious coincidence. Look here," and she held the paper for her mother to see, while she read aloud:

"Shire. Country residence to be let unfurnished, one mile from Blissmore Station. Contains"--and then followed the number of rooms, stabling for three horses, ending up with "quaint and well-stocked garden. Rent moderate. Apply to Messrs Otterson and Bewley, house-agents, Enneslie Street, Blissmore."

"Otterson and Bewley," Mrs Derwent repeated. "Who can they be? I don't remember the name at all. Enneslie Street? Let me see; that was--"

"Never mind about that, mamma dear," said Stasy, who had brightened up wonderfully as she listened to her sister; "I do feel so excited about this house. It seems the very thing for us. Shall we go down to Blissmore at once to see it? I do hope it won't be taken."

"That is not likely," said Blanche. "It is not everybody that has any peculiar attraction to Blissmore. And just look at the list of houses to let!" she added, holding up the paper as she spoke. "But I do think it would be well to write about it, don't you, mamma?"

"Certainly I will. And I am glad to know the name of a house-agent, though it seems strange that there should be such a person at a tiny place like Blissmore. I can't even remember Enneslie Street, though there seems--oh yes, that must be why the name seems familiar. There was a family called Enneslie at a pretty place a short way from Blissmore--Barleymead--yes, that was it. The Enneslies must have been building some houses, I suppose."

And as soon as the obliging waiter had removed the breakfast things, Mrs Derwent got out her writing materials, and set to work at a letter to Messrs Otterson and Bewley.

It was just a little difficult to her to write anything of a formal or business-like nature in English. For as a young girl, nothing of the kind had been required of her, and since her marriage, though the Derwent family had been faithful to their own language among themselves, all outside matters were of course transacted in French. So Blanche and Stasy were both called upon for their advice and opinion.

"How do you begin in English, when it is to a firm?" said Blanche. "In French it is so easy--`Messieurs'--but you can't say `Sirs,' can you?"

Mrs Derwent hesitated.

"I really don't know," she said frankly. "You sometimes wrote for your grandfather to bankers and such people, didn't you, Blanche? Can't you remember?"

Blanche considered.

"I don't recollect ever writing anything but `Sir' or `Dear sir,'" she said.

The three looked at each other in perplexity.

Suddenly a bright idea struck Mrs Derwent.

"I will write it in the third person," she said. "Mrs Derwent will be obliged, etc."

"That is a capital plan," said Blanche, and in a few minutes the letter was satisfactorily completed.

It read rather quaintly, notwithstanding the trouble that had been taken with its composition. The clerk in Messrs Otterson and Bewley's small back office, whose department it was to open the letters addressed to the firm, glanced through it a second time and then tossed it over to young Mr Otterson, who was supposed to be learning the business as a junior in his father's employ.

"Foreigners, I should say," observed the clerk.

"Better show it to the governor before you send an order to view," replied the other.

Mr Otterson, senior, looked dubious.

"Send particulars and an order," he said, "but mention that no negotiations can be entered upon without references. We must be careful: this school is bringing all sorts of impecunious people about the place."

So the reply which found its way to the private hotel in Jermyn Street, though, strictly speaking, civil, was not exactly inviting in its tone.

Mrs Derwent read it, then passed it on to her elder daughter. She felt disappointed and rather chilled. They had been looking for the letter very eagerly, for time hung somewhat heavy on their hands. They had no one to go to see, and very little shopping to do, owing partly to their still deep mourning. And the noise and bustle of the London streets, even at this dead season, was confusing and tiring; worst of all, there was an incipient fog about still, as is not unusual in November.

"What do you think of it?" said Mrs Derwent, when Blanche had read the letter.

"It is dear, surely," said Blanche. "Let me see--one hundred and twenty pounds; that is, three thousand francs. I thought small country-houses in England were less than that."

"So did I," her mother replied. "Still, we can afford that. Of course, if it had not been for my own money turning out so much less than was expected, we could have bought a little place, which would have been far nicer."

"I don't know that," said Blanche. "At least, it would not have been wise to buy a place till we had tried it. And you have still a little money, mamma, besides what we get from France. We shall have quite enough."

Mrs Derwent's "own money," inherited from her father, had been unwisely invested by him; when it came to be realised after his death, it proved a much less important addition to Henry Derwent's income than had been anticipated.

"Oh yes, we shall have _enough_," she replied, fingering the agents' letter as she spoke. "I don't understand," she went on again, "I don't understand what they mean by the `recent rise in house rents owing to the improvements in the town.' What improvements can there be?"

"Gas, perhaps, or electric light," said Blanche.

"_Gas_, my dear child!" repeated her mother. "Of course, there has always been gas there. It was not such a barbarous, out-of-the-way place as all that. Still, I scarcely think they can have risen to the heights of electric lighting yet. But we must go down and see for ourselves. These agents ask for references, too: I wonder if that is usual in England? No doubt, however, it will be all right when I tell them who I was."

"But if they did want formal references," said Blanche hesitatingly, "have we any one whose name we could give?"

"My bankers," Mrs Derwent replied promptly. "Monsieur Bergeret opened a private account for me with the firm's bankers here. I do wish I could identify the house," she added. "I am sure I never heard the name before--`Pinnerton Lodge'--and yet I have a vague remembrance of `Pinnerton.'"

"Just as you had of `Enneslie,' mamma," said Stasy. "Well, when are we to go to see it? To-morrow?"

"Yes; I see no use in delaying it," said Mrs Derwent.

So the next morning saw the mother and daughters again at Victoria Station, Master Herty having been given over with many charges to the care of the faithful Aline.

They were in more than good time; their train was not due for some twenty minutes or so, and as they walked up and down the platform, the picture of their first arrival there returned to Blanche's mind.

"Did you see that girl the other night, mamma?" she said. "The girl who hailed a porter for us. No, I don't think you did. The fog was so thick. I never saw such a charming face: the very incarnation of youth and happiness she seemed to me;" and she related the little incident to her companions.

Stasy sighed.

"I daresay she has got a lovely home somewhere, and relations who make a great pet of her, and--and--oh, just everything in the world she wants," she said.

Blanche looked at her sister doubtfully.

"Perhaps she has, but perhaps not," she replied. "It isn't always those lucky people who are the happiest. But, Stasy, I do wish you wouldn't be so lugubrious: the air of London doesn't seem to suit you."

"I am not lugubri--what a dreadful word!--I am quite cheerful to-day. It is so interesting to be going to choose our new house. Mamma, shall we have to buy a lot of furniture, or will there be enough of what we had at home?"

"My dear Stasy--of course not. What a baby you are! Don't you remember that we sold by far the greater part to the Baron de Var? Dear me, yes; we shall have to buy all sorts of things."

Stasy's eyes sparkled.

"That will be delightful," she said. "I _am_ so glad. So if we settle to take the house at once, we shall be ever so busy choosing things. That's just what I like."

Her good spirits lasted, and, indeed, increased, to the end of the journey. It was exhilarating to get out of the murky London air, even though in the country it was decidedly cold, and even slightly misty. As they approached her old home, Mrs Derwent grew pale with excitement.

"To think," she said to her daughters, "of all that has happened since I left it, a thoughtless girl, that bright October morning, when my father drove me in to the station, and gave me in charge to the friend who was to take me to Paris, where young Madame de Caillemont, as we called her--the daughter-in-law of our old friend--met me, to escort me to Bordeaux. To think that I never came back again till now--with you two, my darlings, fatherless already in your turn, as I was so soon to be then."

"But not _motherless_?" said Stasy, nestling in closer, "as you were, you poor, dear, little thing. And you hadn't even a brother or sister! Except for marrying papa, you would have been very lonely. But I wish you'd look out of the window now, mamma, and see if you remember the places. We must be getting very near Blissmore."

The train was an express one, which in itself had surprised Mrs Derwent a little: express trains used not to stop at Blissmore. They whizzed past some roadside stations, of which, with some difficulty the girls made out the names, in one or two instances familiar to their mother. Then signs of a more important stopping-place began to appear; rows of small, "run-up" cottages, such as one often sees on the outskirts of a town that is beginning to "grow;" here and there a tall chimney, suggestive of a brewery or steam-laundry, were to be seen, on which Mrs Derwent gazed with bewildered eyes.

"This surely cannot be Blissmore," she exclaimed, as the train slackened. "I have not recognised the neighbourhood at all. It must be some larger town that I had forgotten, or else the railway comes along a different route now."

But Blissmore it was. Another moment or two left no room for doubt; and, feeling indeed like a stranger in a strange land, Mrs Derwent stepped on to the platform of what was now a fairly important railway station.

"A fly, ma'am--want a fly?" said several voices, as the three made their way to the outside, where several vehicles were standing, and some amount of bustle going on.

Mrs Derwent looked irresolutely at her daughters. "I had thought of walking to the house-agents'," she said; "but now I doubt if I should find the way. It all seems so utterly changed."

"We should need a carriage in any case to get to the place we have come to see," said Blanche. "It is a mile or more from the station, they said."

"Pinnerton Lodge," said Mrs Derwent to the foremost of the flymen; "do you know where that is?"

"Pinnerton Lodge," repeated the man. Then, his memory refreshed by some of the standers-by, he exclaimed: "Oh, to be sure--out Pinnerton Green way. There's two or three houses out there."

"Then I shall want you to drive us there; but go first to Enneslie Street--Messrs Otterson and Bewley, the house-agents," said Mrs Derwent, as she got into the fly, followed by her daughters.

"Pinnerton Green," she repeated as they were driving off. "Oh yes; I remember now. That was what was in my mind. It was a sort of little hamlet near Blissmore, with an old-world well in the middle of the green. They must have built houses about there. How they have been building!" she continued, as the fly turned into the High Street of the little town. "I know where I am now; but really--it is almost incredible."

Blanche and Stasy were looking about them with interest. But in comparison with London and Paris, and even Bordeaux, Blissmore did not strike them as anything but a small town. They had not their mother's associations with grass-grown streets, and but one thoroughfare worthy the name, and two or three sleepy shops, whose modest windows scarcely allowed the goods for sale to be seen at all.

"It is a nice, bright, little place, I think," said Blanche, as some rays of wintry sunshine lighted up the old church clock, which at that moment pealed out noon, sonorously enough, eliciting the exclamation, "Ah yes; there is a familiar sound," from Mrs Derwent.

A moment later and they had turned into a side-street, to draw up, a few yards farther on, in front of a very modern, spick-and-span-looking house, half shop, half office, with the name they were in quest of, "Messrs Otterson and Bewley, House-agents, Auctioneers, etc," in large black-and-gold letters, on the plate-glass.

"Enneslie Street," said Mrs Derwent. "Why, this used to be Market Corner! There were only about half-a-dozen cottages, and, on market days, a few booths. Dear me! I feel like Rip Van Winkle."

CHAPTER FOUR.

PINNERTON LODGE.

Mr Otterson received the strangers with formal and somewhat pompous civility, and a somewhat exaggerated caution, not to say suspiciousness of manner, which struck disagreeably on Mrs Derwent and Blanche, accustomed to have to do with people who knew as much about them as they did themselves.

The house could be seen at once, certainly; as to that there was no difficulty. But before entering further into the matter, Mr Otterson begged to be excused, but might he remind the ladies that his client empowered him to deal with no applicants whose references were not perfectly sufficient and satisfactory. Clear understanding in such cases was, according to his experience, the best in the end, even if it should cause a little delay at the outset.

"No delay need be caused in _my_ case," said Mrs Derwent, with a touch of haughtiness which her daughters enjoyed. "My references will be found perfectly satisfactory. Is this--this ultra caution, _usual_ in such transactions," she continued, flushing a little, "may I ask?"

And as she spoke, she drew out of her bag and deposited on the table two letters she had had the foresight to bring with her--one from the firm at Bordeaux, enclosing an acknowledgment to them of the money placed to the credit of "Mrs Anastasia Derwent" with their London bankers.

Mr Otterson's keen eyes took in the nature of their contents even while scarcely seeming to glance at them. His manner grew a trifle less stilted.

"Cautious we have to be, madam," he replied, "though you will not find us exaggeratedly so, I trust. And in the interests of our clients, we naturally feel it our duty to give the preference to the most desirable among the constantly increasing applications for houses here. In your case, possibly, being foreigners, a little extra--"

"We are _not_ foreigners," said Blanche; "and if we were? I certainly am not surprised at the small number of upper-class `foreigners' who come to England, if this is the sort of thing they have to go through."

The house-agent glanced at her with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. She looked beautiful at that moment. Her fair face flushed, her usually gentle eyes sparkling.

"You--you misunderstand, madam," he was beginning, when Mrs Derwent in her turn interrupted him.

"On the contrary, sir," she said very quietly, "I think, it is distinctly you who have misunderstood us. As my daughter says, we are not foreigners. Beyond the statement of that fact, which you seem to consider important, I do not think we need waste time by entering into further particulars. The matter is a purely business one. If you do not find my references satisfactory, be so good as to say so at once, and I will apply to London agents about a house."

In his heart Mr Otterson had no wish to let these really very promising applicants for the honour of inhabiting Pinnerton Lodge escape him. On the contrary, they struck him as just the sort of people its owner would approve of--not unwilling to lay out a little money on repairs and improvements, etc.

"I have in no way implied, madam, that the names you have submitted to me are unsatisfactory references," he said, not without a touch of dignity. "As you observe, it is a matter of business, and if you approve, I will send a clerk at once to the house to have it all open for you."