“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.
“It is nice that the landlord is still there: I wonder if they will perhaps recollect us,” she said. “Your grandfather always put up there. They were such civil people.”
“Civil” they still were, and had reason to be, for it is not every day that a family party takes up its quarters indefinitely in a first-class and expensive London hotel. And it had not occurred to Mrs Derwent to make any very special inquiry as to their charges.
So in the meantime ignorance was bliss, and the sitting-room, though small, with two bedrooms opening out of it on one side and one on the other, looked fairly comfortable, despite the insidious fog lurking in every corner. For there was a good fire blazing, and promise of tea on a side-table. But it was all so strange, so very strange! A curious thrill, almost of anguish, passed through Blanche, as she realised that for the time being they were—but for this—homeless, and as if to mock her, there came before her mental vision the dear old house—sunny, and spacious, and above all familiar, which they had left for ever! Had it been well to do so? The future alone could show.
But a glance at her mother’s face, pale and anxious, under a very obtrusive cheerfulness, far more touching than expressed misgiving, recalled the girl to the small but unmistakable duties of the present.
“I mustn’t begin to be sentimental about our old home,” she said to herself. “Mamma has acted from the very best possible motives, and I must support her by being hopeful and cheerful.”
And she turned brightly to Stasy, who had thrown herself on to a low chair in front of the hearth, and was holding out her cold hands to the blaze.
“What a nice fire!” said the elder girl. “How beautifully warm!”
“Yes,” Stasy agreed. “I am beginning already to understand the English devotion to one’s own fireside. Poor things! There cannot be much temptation—in London, at least—to stray far from it. Imagine walking, or even worse, driving through the streets! And I had looked forward to shopping a little, and to seeing some of the sights of London. How do people ever do anything here?”