Blanche: A Story for Girls, Page 2

English than poor grandfather, for he hada regular public school education."

  "But grandfather only came to France as a grown-up man, and papa wasborn here," said Blanche. "Of the two, one would have expected papa tobe the more French, yet he certainly was not. Perhaps it was just thatdear old gran was a more clinging nature, and took the colour of hissurroundings more easily. We are just the opposite: neither Stasy nor Icould be called at all French, could we, mamma?"

  She said it with a certain satisfaction, and Mrs Derwent smiled as shelooked at them. Blanche, though fair, gave one the impression ofunusual strength and vigour. Stasy was slighter and somewhat darker.Both were pretty, and promising to grow still prettier. And from theiradopted country they had unconsciously imbibed a certain "finish" inboth bearing and appearance, which as a rule comes to Englishwomen, whenit comes at all, somewhat later in life.

  "We are _not_ French-looking, mamma; now, are we?" chimed in the youngergirl.

  "Well, no, not in yourselves, certainly," said Mrs Derwent. "But still,there cannot but be a little something, of tone and air, not quiteEnglish. How could it be otherwise, considering that your whole liveshave been spent in France? But you need not distress yourselves aboutit. You will feel yourselves _quite_ English once we are in England."

  "We do that already," said Blanche. "You know, mamma, how constantlyour friends here reproach us with being so English. One thing, I mustsay I am glad of--we have no French accent in speaking English."

  "No, I really do not think you have," Mrs Derwent replied. "It is oneof the things I have been the most anxious about. For it always setsone a little at a disadvantage to speak the language of any country witha foreign accent, if one's _home_ is to be in the place. How delightfulit is to think of really settling in England! I wonder if I shall findBlissmore much changed. How I wish I could describe my old home,Fotherley, better to you--how I wish I could make you _see_ it! I canfancy I feel the breeze on the top of the knoll just behind the vicaragegarden; I can _hear_ the church bells sometimes--the dear, dear old homethat it was."

  "I think you describe it beautifully, mamma," said Stasy. "I often lieawake at night making pictures of it to myself."

  "And we shall see it for ourselves soon," added Blanche; "that is tosay, mamma," she went on with a little hesitation, "if you quite decidethat--"

  "What, my dear?" said her mother.

  "Oh--that Blissmore will be the best place for us to settle at," saidBlanche, rather abruptly, as if she had been anxious to get the wordssaid, and yet half fearful of their effect.

  Mrs Derwent's face clouded over a little.

  "What an odd thing for you to say, my dear?" she replied. "You cannothave any prejudice against my dear old home, and where else could we gowhich would be so sure to _be_ home, where we should at once be knownand welcomed? Besides, the place itself is charming--so very pretty,and a delightful neighbourhood, and not very far from London either. Wecould at any time run up for a day or two."

  "Ye-es," said Blanche; "the only thing is, dear mamma, I have heard somuch of English society being stiff and exclusive--"

  "It's not as stiff and exclusive as French," Mrs Derwent interrupted;"only you cannot judge of that, having lived here all your life, andknowing every one there was to know within a good large radius, just as_I_ knew everybody round about Blissmore when I was a girl."

  "But all these years! Will they not have brought immense changes?"still objected Blanche. "And it is not as if we were very rich orimportant people. If we were going to buy some fine chateau in Englandand entertain a great deal, it would be different. But, judged byEnglish ideas, we shall not be rich or important. Not that I shouldwish to be either. I should like to live modestly, and have our ownpoor people to look after, and just a few friends--the life one readsabout in some of our charming English tales, mamma."

  "And why should we not have it, my dear? We shall be able to have avery pretty house, I hope. I only wish one of those I remember werelikely to be vacant; and why, therefore, should you be afraid ofBlissmore? Surely my old home is the most natural place for us to goto: I cannot be quite forgotten there." Blanche said no more, andindeed it would have been difficult to put into more definite form hervague misgivings about Blissmore. Her knowledge of English social lifewas of course principally derived from books, and from her mother'sreminiscences, which it was easy to see were coloured by the glamour ofthe past, and drawn from a short and youthful experience under thehappiest auspices. And Blanche was by no means inclined to prejudice;there was no doubt, even by Mrs Derwent's own account, that her old homehad been in a peculiarly "exclusive" part of the country.

  "I should not mind so much for ourselves," she said to Stasy, that sameafternoon, as they were walking up and down the stiff gravelled terracein the garden at the back of their house--their "town house," inBordeaux itself, where eight months of the year had been spent by theDerwent family for three generations. "But I do feel so afraid of poormamma's being disappointed."

  Stasy was inclined to take the other view of it.

  "Why should we get on _less_ well at Blissmore than anywhere else?" shesaid. "Of course, wherever we go, it will be strange at first, butsurely there is more likelihood of our feeling at home there than at atotally new place. I cannot understand you quite, Blanchie."

  "I don't know that I quite understand myself," Blanche replied. "It ismore an instinct. I suppose I dread mamma's old home, because she wouldgo there with more expectation. It will be curious, Stasy, verycurious, to find ourselves really in England. There cannot be manyEnglish girls who have reached our age without having even seen theirown country."

  "And to have been so near it all these years," said Stasy, "Oh, it istoo delightful to think we are really going to live in England--dear,dear England! Of course I shall always love France; we have been veryhappy in many ways, except for our great sorrows," and her bright,sparkling face sobered, as, at April-like sixteen, a face can sober, tobeam all the more sunnily the next moment--"we have been very happy, butwe are going to be still happier, aren't we, Blanchie?"

  "I hope so, darling. But you will have to go on working for a goodwhile once we are settled again, you know. And I too. We are both veryignorant of much English literature, though, thanks to papa's libraryand grandfather's advice, I think we know some of the older authorsbetter than some English girls do. I wonder what sort of teaching wecan get at Blissmore; we are rather too old for a governess."

  "Oh dear, yes. Of course we can't have a governess," said Stasy. "Wemust go to _cours_--`classes,' or whatever they are called. I supposethere is something of the kind at Blissmore."

  "I don't know that there is. I don't know what will be done aboutHerty," said Blanche. "I'm afraid he may have to go to school, and weshould miss him so, shouldn't we?"

  "There may be a school near enough for him to come home every evening,"said Stasy, who was incapable of seeing anything to do with their newprojects in other than the brightest colours. "There he is--coming tocall us in.--Well, Herty, what is it?" as a pretty, fair-haired boy cameracing along the straight paths to meet them.

  "The post has come, and mamma has a letter from England, and dinner willbe ready directly, and--and--my guinea-pigs' salad is all done, andthere is no more of the right kind in the garden," said the little boy."What shall I do?"

  "After dinner you shall go with Aline to the vegetable shop near themarket place and buy some lettuce--that is the proper word--not `salad,'when it is a guinea-pig's affair," said Stasy.

  For it was early summer-time, and the evenings were long and light.

  Blanche smiled.

  "My dear Stasy, your English is a little open to correction as wellas Herty," she said. "You must not speak of a vegetableshop--`greengrocers' is the right name, and--there was something ratherodd about the last sentence, `a guinea-pig's affair.'"

  "Well, you can't say `a guinea-pig's business,' can you?" said Stasy."Let us ask mamma. I am, above all, anxious to
speak perfect English.Let us be most particular for the next few weeks; let us pray mamma tocorrect us if we make the slightest mistake."

  "I wonder what the letter is that has come," said Blanche. "I think wehad better go in now. Mamma may want us. After dinner, perhaps, shewill come out with us a little. How difficult it is to picture thisdear old house inhabited by strangers! I think it is charming here insummer; we have never been in the town so late before. I like it everso much better than Les