Stasy’s presentiment came true. The reports of the builder the next morning, when he called to enter into particulars with Mrs Derwent, were favourable; and later in the day the mother and daughters returned to London with very little doubt in their minds as to their future home being Pinnerton Lodge.
London looked very grim and dreary after the clear fine sky in the country, and Stasy shivered at the thought of how many days must yet forcibly be spent there, before they could install themselves in their new quarters.
But the things we dread are not always those that come to pass. Mrs Derwent, as I have said, was in some ways extremely inexperienced in English life and rates of expenses. Busy and eager about the arrangements for their new house, she put off asking for her hotel bill till fully a fortnight after the little party’s arrival in London. And when she received it and glanced at the total, she was aghast!
“Blanche, my dear,” she exclaimed, “just look at this. Is it not tremendous? Why, we might have lived at a hotel at home for nearly a year for what this fortnight has cost us!”
“Not quite that, mamma,” said Blanche, smiling, though her own fair face was flushed with annoyance. “But, no doubt, it is very dear. And yet we seem to have lived plainly enough. Mamma,” she went on decidedly, “we mustn’t stay here; that is quite certain. All you have got in reserve for furnishing our house and paying for the alterations will be wasted, and what should we do then?”
Mrs Derwent sat silent, considering.
“You are quite right, dear,” she said at last. “We must look out for lodgings. But I have a horror of London lodgings. They are so often detestable.”
“Why stay in London at all?” said Stasy suddenly from her corner of the room, where, though engrossed with a story-book, her quick ears had been caught by the sound of vexation in her mother’s voice. “I am sure it is horrid—so dull, and knowing nobody. Why shouldn’t we go down to Blissmore, to that nice little Miss Halliday’s, and stay there till the house is ready? We meant to go there for the last week or two, anyway.”
Blanche’s face lighted up, and she looked at her mother anxiously. But Mrs Derwent hesitated.
“It would certainly be comfortable enough,” she said; “quite as comfortable as here. But to stay there for so long—for several weeks? Is it not rather lowering? I don’t want to get mixed up with Blissmore people: they must be a very heterogeneous society; not like in the old days when there were just a very few thoroughly established people living in the town, whom everybody knew and respected.”