Mrs. Molesworth - Blanche - A Story for Girls

“How long is it since you last heard from him?” said Stasy.

“Oh, a good while. Let me see. I doubt if I have written to him since – since I wrote to thank him for writing to me when – soon after your father’s death,” replied Mrs Derwent.

“That is several years ago,” said Blanche gently. “I fear, dear mamma, your old friend must be dead.”

“I hope not,” said her mother; “but for the present it is much the same as if he were. Let me see. No, I cannot think of any one it would be much use to write to at Blissmore. We must depend on ourselves.”

“Who is the vicar at Fotherley now – at least, who came after our grandfather?” asked Blanche.

Mrs Derwent looked up.

“That is not a bad idea. I might write to him. Fleming was his name. I remember him vaguely; he was curate for a time. But that is now twenty years ago: it is by no means certain he is still there, and I don’t care to write letters only to have them returned from the post-office. Besides, I have not an altogether pleasant remembrance of that Mr Fleming. His wife and daughter were noisy, pushing women, and it was said the living was given to him greatly out of pity for their poverty. Sir Adam told me about it in one of his letters: he regretted it. Dear Sir Adam! He used to write often in those days.”

“I daresay it will not make much difference in the end,” said Blanche. “No one can really choose a house for other people. Nothing could have been decided without our seeing it.”

“No; still it would have been nice to know that there were any promising ones vacant. However, we have to be in London for a short time, in any case. We must travel down to Blissmore from there, and look about for ourselves.”

The Derwents’ first experience of their own, though unknown country was a rather unfortunate one. Why, of all months in the year, the Fates should have conspired to send them to London in November, it is not for me to explain. No doubt, had Mrs Derwent’s memories and knowledge of the peculiarities of the English climate been as accurate as she liked to believe they were of everything relating to her beloved country, she would have set the Fates, or fate, at defiance, if such a thing be possible, by avoiding this mysteriously doleful month as the date of her return thither. But long residence in France, where, though often without any spite or malice prepense , people are very fond of taunting British foreigners with the weak points in their national perfection, had developed a curious, contradictory scepticism in her, as to the existence of any such weak points at all.

“People do talk such nonsense about England,” she would say to her daughters, “as if it were always raining there when it is not foggy. I believe they think we never see the sun at all. Dear me! when I look back on my childhood and youth, I cannot remember anything but sunshiny days. It seems to have been always summer, even when we were skating on the lake at Alderwood.”

She smiled, and her daughters smiled. They understood, and believed her – believed, Stasy especially, almost too unquestioningly. For when the train drew up in Victoria Station that mid-November afternoon, the poor girl turned to her mother with dismay.

“Mamma,” she exclaimed, “it isn’t three o’clock, and it is quite dark. And such a queer kind of darkness! It came all of a sudden, just when the houses got into rows and streets. I thought at first it was smoke from some great fire. But it can’t be, for nobody seems to notice it – at least as far as I can see anybody. And the porters are all going about with lanterns. Oh mamma, can it be – surely it isn’t always like this?”

And Stasy seemed on the point of tears.

Poor Mrs Derwent had had her unacknowledged suspicions. But she looked out of the window as if for the first time she had noticed anything amiss.

“Why, yes,” she replied, “it is rather unlucky; but, after all, it will be an amusing experience. We have made our début in the thick of a real London fog!”

Herty, who had been asleep, here woke up and began coughing and choking and grumbling at what he called “the fire-taste” in his mouth; and even the cheerful-minded Aline, the maid, looked rather blank.

Blanche said nothing, but from that moment a vague idea that, if no suitable house offered itself at Blissmore, she would use her influence in favour of London itself as their permanent headquarters, was irrevocably dismissed from her mind.

“We should die!” she said to herself; “at least mamma and Stasy, who are not as strong as I, would. Oh dear, I hope we are not going to regret our great step!”

For they had left Bordeaux in the full glow of sunshine – the exquisite “autumn summer” of the more genial south, where, though the winter may not infrequently be bitingly cold, at least it is restricted to its own orthodox three months.

“And this is only November,” proceeded Blanche in her unspoken misgivings. “Everybody says an English spring never really sets in till May, if then. Fancy fully five months of cold like this, and not improbable fog. No, no; we cannot stay in London: the cold must be faced, but not the fog.”

Yet she could scarcely help laughing at the doleful expression of her sister’s face, when the little party had disentangled themselves and their belongings from the railway carriage, and were standing, bewildered and forlorn, trying to look about them in the murky air.

“Mustn’t we see about our luggage, mamma?” said Blanche, feeling herself considerably at a disadvantage in this strange and all but invisible world. “It is managed the same way as in France, I suppose. We must find the – what do they call the room where we wait to claim it?”

“I – I really don’t know,” said Mrs Derwent. “It will be all right, I suppose, if we follow the others.”

But there were no “others” with any very definite goal, apparently. There were two or three little crowds dimly to be seen at different parts of the train, whence boxes seemed to be disgorging.

“It is much more puzzling than in France,” said Blanche, her own spirits flagging. “I do hope we shall not have long to wait. This air is really choking.”

She had Herty’s hand in hers, and moved forward towards a lamp, with some vague idea that its light would lessen her perplexity. Suddenly a face flashed upon her, and a sense of something bright and invigorating came over her almost before she had time to associate the two together.

The face was that of a person standing just under the lamp – a girl, a tall young girl with brilliant but kindly eyes, and a general look of extreme, overflowing youthful happiness. She smiled at Blanche, overhearing her last words.

“You should call a porter,” she said. “They are rather scarce to-night, the train was so full, and the fog is so confusing. Stay – there is one. – Porter! – He will see to your luggage. You won’t have as long to wait as in Paris.”

A sort of breath of thanks was all there was time for, then the girl turned at the sound of a name – “Hebe” – through the fog, and was instantly lost to view. But her face, her joyous face, in its strange setting of dingy yellow-brown, streaked with the almost dingier struggling gas-light, was impressed upon Blanche’s memory, like a never-to-be-forgotten picture.

“Hebe,” she said to herself, as she explained to her mother, just then becoming visible, that the porter would take charge for them – “Hebe: how the name suits her!”

An hour later saw them in their temporary haven of refuge – a private hotel in Jermyn Street. In this hotel Mrs Derwent had once spent a happy week with her father when she was eighteen, and she was delighted when, in reply to her letter bespeaking accommodation for herself and her family, there came a reply in the same name as she remembered had formerly been that of the proprietor.