“People do talk such nonsense about England,” she would say to her daughters, “as if it were always raining there when it is not foggy. I believe they think we never see the sun at all. Dear me! when I look back on my childhood and youth, I cannot remember anything but sunshiny days. It seems to have been always summer, even when we were skating on the lake at Alderwood.”
She smiled, and her daughters smiled. They understood, and believed her – believed, Stasy especially, almost too unquestioningly. For when the train drew up in Victoria Station that mid-November afternoon, the poor girl turned to her mother with dismay.
“Mamma,” she exclaimed, “it isn’t three o’clock, and it is quite dark. And such a queer kind of darkness! It came all of a sudden, just when the houses got into rows and streets. I thought at first it was smoke from some great fire. But it can’t be, for nobody seems to notice it – at least as far as I can see anybody. And the porters are all going about with lanterns. Oh mamma, can it be – surely it isn’t always like this?”
And Stasy seemed on the point of tears.
Poor Mrs Derwent had had her unacknowledged suspicions. But she looked out of the window as if for the first time she had noticed anything amiss.
“Why, yes,” she replied, “it is rather unlucky; but, after all, it will be an amusing experience. We have made our début in the thick of a real London fog!”
Herty, who had been asleep, here woke up and began coughing and choking and grumbling at what he called “the fire-taste” in his mouth; and even the cheerful-minded Aline, the maid, looked rather blank.
Blanche said nothing, but from that moment a vague idea that, if no suitable house offered itself at Blissmore, she would use her influence in favour of London itself as their permanent headquarters, was irrevocably dismissed from her mind.
“We should die!” she said to herself; “at least mamma and Stasy, who are not as strong as I, would. Oh dear, I hope we are not going to regret our great step!”
For they had left Bordeaux in the full glow of sunshine – the exquisite “autumn summer” of the more genial south, where, though the winter may not infrequently be bitingly cold, at least it is restricted to its own orthodox three months.
“And this is only November,” proceeded Blanche in her unspoken misgivings. “Everybody says an English spring never really sets in till May, if then. Fancy fully five months of cold like this, and not improbable fog. No, no; we cannot stay in London: the cold must be faced, but not the fog.”
Yet she could scarcely help laughing at the doleful expression of her sister’s face, when the little party had disentangled themselves and their belongings from the railway carriage, and were standing, bewildered and forlorn, trying to look about them in the murky air.
“Mustn’t we see about our luggage, mamma?” said Blanche, feeling herself considerably at a disadvantage in this strange and all but invisible world. “It is managed the same way as in France, I suppose. We must find the – what do they call the room where we wait to claim it?”
“I – I really don’t know,” said Mrs Derwent. “It will be all right, I suppose, if we follow the others.”
But there were no “others” with any very definite goal, apparently. There were two or three little crowds dimly to be seen at different parts of the train, whence boxes seemed to be disgorging.
“It is much more puzzling than in France,” said Blanche, her own spirits flagging. “I do hope we shall not have long to wait. This air is really choking.”
She had Herty’s hand in hers, and moved forward towards a lamp, with some vague idea that its light would lessen her perplexity. Suddenly a face flashed upon her, and a sense of something bright and invigorating came over her almost before she had time to associate the two together.
The face was that of a person standing just under the lamp – a girl, a tall young girl with brilliant but kindly eyes, and a general look of extreme, overflowing youthful happiness. She smiled at Blanche, overhearing her last words.
“You should call a porter,” she said. “They are rather scarce to-night, the train was so full, and the fog is so confusing. Stay – there is one. – Porter! – He will see to your luggage. You won’t have as long to wait as in Paris.”
A sort of breath of thanks was all there was time for, then the girl turned at the sound of a name – “Hebe” – through the fog, and was instantly lost to view. But her face, her joyous face, in its strange setting of dingy yellow-brown, streaked with the almost dingier struggling gas-light, was impressed upon Blanche’s memory, like a never-to-be-forgotten picture.
“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?”
Her extreme dolefulness roused the others to genuine laughter.
“My dearest child,” said her mother, “you don’t suppose London is always like this? Why, I don’t remember a single fog when I was a girl, and though I did not live in London, I often paid visits here, now and then in the winter.”
“Oh, but, mamma, you can’t remember anything in England but delightfulness,” said Stasy incredulously. “Why, I know one day you told us it seemed to have been summer even when you were skating. And I daresay fogs have got worse since then. Very likely we shall be told that they are beginning to spread all over the country. I know I read or heard somewhere that they were getting worse.”
“Only