“Ah yes; Fleming,” responded Mrs Burgess serenely.
And Mrs Derwent, afraid of beginning to laugh out of sheer nervousness and irritation, gave up the attempt to set her right.
Then followed more cross-questioning, in which the doctor’s wife was almost as great an adept as the smartest of great ladies. She varied her inquiries skilfully from mother to daughters, and back to mother again, till none of the three felt sure what sort of correct or “crooked” answers they had been beguiled into giving, and finally took leave in high good-humour, reiterating at the last that she would not forget to speak to Mrs Wandle; Mrs Derwent might depend upon her. “A word from me will be enough: we are such great friends. I am sure she will call as soon as she hears how anxious you are to see her.”
As the door closed upon her, Mrs Derwent and Blanche looked first at each other, then at Stasy, who put on an expression of extra innocence and indifference. This hardened Blanche’s heart.
“Well, Stasy,” she said, “I hope you are satisfied. See what you have done by telling Mr Burgess we felt dull, and so on.”
“I don’t mind her having called,” said Stasy, determined to keep up a brave front. “I think she is most amusing; and what possible harm can she do us?”
“Every harm of the kind; though, of course, I suppose one should try to be above those things,” said Blanche doubtfully. “But still, we didn’t come to live in England to have as our only friends and companions people we cannot feel in sympathy with. It is not wrong not to want to live among coarse-natured, vulgar-minded people, if it isn’t one’s duty to do so.”
“There are vulgar minds in every class, I fear,” said Mrs Derwent. “Still, that is a different matter. I do wish this had not begun; for I do not like to seem arrogant or ill-natured. And it is very difficult to keep a pushing woman like this Mrs Burgess at a distance, without being really disagreeable to her.”
“We could stand her even,” said Blanche, regretfully. “There would be a sort of excuse for it, as she is the doctor’s wife; but it is all these other awful people she is going to bring down upon us, ‘butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers,’ like the nursery rhyme you used to say, mamma! And if other people—refined people—hear we are in the midst of such society as that, they won’t want to know us. I wish we hadn’t come to Blissmore.”
It was not often that Blanche was so discomposed. Her mother tried to soften matters.