“Then your aunt is dead, I suppose,” said Mrs Derwent. “She must have been a good age, for when I remember her, she had already quite white hair and stooped a good deal. She used to retrim and alter my hats very nicely, and I remember how interested she was when my new ones came down from London. I was—my unmarried name was Fenning. My father was the rector of Fotherley, the village near Alderwood.”
Miss Halliday looked delighted at having her curiosity thus satisfied.
“Oh indeed, madam,” she said. “I’m sure I’ve heard my aunt speak of the late Mr Fenning. When I first came to Blissmore, the vicar of Fotherley was a Mr Fleming, and I recollect my aunt drawing a contrast, if you’ll excuse my naming it, between that gentleman and his predecessor.”
Mrs Derwent smiled.
“Yes,” she said, “by all accounts there was a very marked contrast.”
Then Deborah appeared to say that the fire was burning up nicely in the best parlour, and thither the ladies repaired to rest and talk. Blanche, the foreseeing, had taken the precaution of bringing a bag with a few necessary articles “just in case we were kept too late,” and Miss Halliday was only too ready to lend anything she could, so the prospects for the night were not very alarming.
Altogether, the spirits of the little family improved; and when Miss Halliday’s neatly prepared little supper made its appearance, they drew their chairs round the table, prepared to do full justice to it.
“I really think,” said Mrs Derwent for the second time that day, “that we have been very lucky. It is nice to have found out these lodgings. We could stay here quite comfortably for a few weeks while the house is getting ready.”
“It would certainly be much less expensive than a London hotel,” said Blanche. “Yes, I do hope we may get to like Blissmore, if all goes through about the house.”
“You mean you hope we shall like Pinnerton Lodge,” said Stasy. “We needn’t have anything to do with Blissmore, except, of course, that it will be our station and post-town. And I suppose we shall do a little shopping here. But, of course, we shall not know any Blissmore people. Mamma, I wish you’d begin to look up some of your old friends. That big place now, near us—East Moddersham. Didn’t you know those people long ago?”