They were at home, and Deborah, somewhat overcome by the honour of a call from Mrs Burgess, admitted and announced her without hesitation. It was not in lady nature, certainly not in Mrs Derwent’s nature, to be other than perfectly courteous in her own house to any visitor, however little desired, and, as was almost a matter of course with a woman of Mrs Burgess’s calibre, she mistook the gentle gravity with which she was received for somewhat awe-struck gratification at her visit, and speedily proceeded to make herself very much at home, very much at home indeed.
This process consisted of several stages. In the first place, after ensconsing herself in the most comfortable chair—Mrs Burgess had a quick eye for a comfortable chair—and amiably waving her hostess to one conveniently near, and, as she expressed it, on her “best side”—for the doctor’s wife was deaf—she loosened her cloak, remarking that, though cold out-of-doors, it was rather “warm in here,” the ceilings were low, and low rooms get quickly “stuffy.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs Derwent. “I am sorry you find it so. We think these rooms very well ventilated. Old-fashioned, thick-walled houses are often warm in winter as well as cool in summer.”
“Pr’aps so,” said Mrs Burgess, “but I’m all for modern improvements. We’ve done a deal to our house; we’d almost better have rebuilt it. But you’ve been living abroad, I believe. Foreign houses are quite another style of thing, I suppose? Very rough compared with English.”
Mrs Derwent could not repress a smile.
”‘Foreign’ is a wide word,” she said, “if you mean it in the sense of anything or everything not English. No, I cannot say that we have been accustomed to living in very rough ways, and there are many beautiful houses in the south of France.”
“Oh, the south of France!” repeated her visitor, who had not very clearly caught the rest of Mrs Derwent’s speech. “Yes, I suppose that’s very much improved by so many English going over there for the winters. And was it for health, then, that you lived there? These young ladies don’t look so very strong. I must tell Mr Burgess to keep his eye on them—living so near, it would be quite a pleasure. But, oh, I was forgetting. You’re thinking of living out of town a bit?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Derwent. “I have taken a house at Pinnerton Green—Pinnerton Lodge.”
Mrs Burgess screwed up her lips.
“Damp,” she said oracularly. “I don’t hold with all these trees. And these delicate girls—”