Dumps – A Plain Girl

“Then that is excellent – excellent,” said Mrs Moore. She looked at me wistfully, as though she meant to say something, but her next remark was, “It is a very nice, suitable arrangement.”

When tea was over I said I thought I ought to be going home. I had a hunger which was filling my heart. My body had been well fed – surprisingly well fed for me – that day. Had not Hannah supplied me with mutton-chops and potatoes, and Mrs Moore with hot cakes and fragrant tea? But I was hungry in another sort of way. I wanted to look at my mother’s picture. I wanted to gaze at the face of my very own mother. I meant to do so when I was quite alone in my bedroom that night. So I said hastily, “I must go back now;” and Mrs Moore went to put on her bonnet.

While she was away I knocked at Augusta’s door.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

“It’s I. I want to say good-bye.”

“Don’t come in, I beg of you. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I answered, feeling somewhat offended. I heard her muttering words inside the room. They became louder:

“And like a dying lady, lone and pale,Who totters forth wrapped in a gauzy veil.”

Mrs Moore opened her door.

“What is the matter with Augusta?” I said.

“Nothing; she is only reciting. She is mad on Shelley at present. – Good-bye, Gussie; I am going to see your friend, Miss Grant, to the Twopenny Tube.”

Augusta replied in a still louder rendering of the words:

“Art thou pale from wearinessOf climbing heaven and gazing on the earth – ”

We went into the street. Mrs Moore took me to the station, and saying she had something to do in another part of the street, she bade me on affectionate good-bye.

I returned to our own house, and when I got there I found Alex and Charley and Von Marlo, as we always called him, waiting for me.

“Then it’s quite true,” said Alex, “that we are to have the whole evening to ourselves? I have brought some grub in, and we are going to cook it ourselves in the parlour. You must help us, Dumps. It doesn’t matter how shabby your frock is; you have got to be the cook.”

“Oh, how scrumptious!” I cried. I felt just in the humour.

“And we can be as noisy as ever we like,” said Charley.

“Only we won’t do anything to hurt your feelings, Miss Rachel,” said Von Marlo.

“The main thing of all is,” said Charley, “that Hannah isn’t to know.”

“Oh, we can easily manage that,” I said. “She won’t come upstairs unless we ring for her. She never does.”

“I’ve taken precious good care that she doesn’t come upstairs,” said Alex, “for I’ve locked the door at the top of the kitchen stairs;” and he produced the key in triumph from his pocket.

“Oh Alex, suppose by any sort of manner or means she wanted to come! Why, she would never forgive us.”

“Serve her right. She won’t answer our rings of late, so now we’ll keep her downstairs in that sweet spot in which she so loves to dwell.”

“But,” I said, “our dinner?”

“Oh, here it is – a mutton bone, barer than usual, and a few potatoes. I thought we’d have a real feast. Did father give you any of the needful when he was going away to-day, Dumps?”

“Why, yes,” I said, “he gave me five shillings.”

“And he gave me the same.”

“And me the same,” said Charley.

“You’ll have to pay us back your share of the grub to-morrow,” said Alex; “but we bought it beforehand.”

“Well, we can’t cook without cooking things,” I said.

“Sakes!” replied Alex; “do you suppose that while you were wandering about London by yourself – highly improper for any young lady, I call it – that we were idle? Charley and Von Marlo and I went down into the kitchen and purloined a frying-pan, a saucepan, a kettle, cups and saucers, glasses, knives and forks galore, and plates. Table-cloths don’t matter. Now then, to see the array of eatables.”

Alex produced out of his bag first of all, in a dirty piece of paper, a skinned rabbit, next a pound of sausages, next a parcel of onions.

“These will make a jolly good fry,” said Alex, smacking his lips as he spoke.

From Charley’s pockets came a great piece of butter, while Von Marlo rid himself of a huge incubus in the shape of a loaf of very fresh bread.

“There are lots of things beside,” said Charley: “potatoes – we’re going to fry them after the rabbit and sausages – and fruit and cakes. We thought if we had a good, big, monstrous fry, and then satisfied the rest of our appetites with cake and fruit, as much as ever we can eat, that we’d do.”

“What about tea or coffee?” I said.

“Bother tea or coffee!” said Alex. “We’ll have ginger-beer. We brought in a whole dozen bottles. It was that that nearly killed us. If it hadn’t been for Von Marlo we’d never have done it. Now then, Dumps, who’ll cut up the rabbit, and who’ll put it into the pan with the sausages? They ought to be done in a jiffy. We’ll cut up the onions and strew them over the rabbit and sausages. I want our fry to be real tasty.”

I became quite interested. What girl would not? To have the whole of the great house to ourselves, to have three lively, hungry boys gloating greedily over the food, and to think that I alone knew how to cook it!

But, alas and alack! my pride was soon doomed to be humiliated; for Von Marlo, who had poached the egg so beautifully, now came forward and told me that I was not cutting up the rabbit with any sense of its anatomical proportions. He took a sharp clasp-knife out of his pocket, and in a minute or two the deed was done. He then objected to my mode of preparing the sausages, declaring that they ought to be pricked and the skins slightly opened. In the end he said it would be much better for him to prepare the fry, and I left it to him.

“Yes, yes,” I said; “and I’ll put on the table-cloth. Oh, but there isn’t a table-cloth!”

“Who wants a table-cloth?” said Alex. “Let’s have newspapers. Here’s a pile.”

We then proceeded to spread them on the centre table, and placed the knives and forks and glasses upon them. The sausages popped and frizzled, the rabbit shrank into tiny proportions, the onions filled the air with their odorous scent, and by-and-by the fry was considered done. When we had each been helped to a goodly portion, Von Marlo began to fry the potatoes, and these turned out to be more delicious than the rabbit and sausages. What a meal it was! How we laughed and joked and made merry!

“Three cheers for father’s absence!” shouted Alex, holding his glass high, as he prepared to pour the foaming contents down his throat.

There came a knocking – a violent and furious knocking – in a part of the house which was not the front door.

“It’s Hannah! Hannah!” I cried. “She wants to come out. Oh Alex, we must let her out!”

“Nothing of the sort,” exclaimed Charley. “Let her knock until she’s tired of knocking.”

The door was shaken violently. We heard a woman’s voice calling and calling.

“Charley, I must go,” I said. “I cannot eat anything. Poor old Hannah! Oh, do let me open the door!”

“When the feast is over we’ll cook a little supper for her, and bring her in and set her down in front of the fire, and make her eat it,” said Von Marlo. “Now, that will do, won’t it? Sit down and eat your nice, hot supper,” he continued, looking attentively at me with his honest brown eyes.

I coloured and looked at him. It was so pleasant to have eyes glancing at you that did not disapprove of you all the time.

Von Marlo drew a chair close to the table for me, and placed another near it for himself, and we ate heartily – yes, heartily – to the accompaniment of Hannah’s knocks and shrieks and screams to us to let her out of her prison.

By-and-by the meal came to an end, and then it was Von Marlo himself who went to the door. We three, we Grants, were sufficiently cowardly to remain in the parlour. By-and-by Von Marlo reappeared, leading Hannah. Hannah had been reduced to tears. He had her hand on his arm, and was conducting her into the parlour with all the grace with which he would conduct a duchess or any other person of title.

“Here’s your supper,” he said. “Sit here; you must be very cold. Sit near the fire and eat, eat.”

She sat down, but she did not eat.

“Come, come,” he said, and he placed an appetising plate of food close to her. She went on sobbing, but her sobs were not quite so frequent.

“It smells good, doesn’t it?” said Von Marlo; and now he put a tender piece of rabbit on the end of a fork and held it within an inch of her mouth.

“You will be much better after you have eaten,” he said in a coaxing tone.

He had managed to place himself in such a position that when she did stop crying she could only see him; and after a time the smell of the delicious stew, and something about the comfort of her present position close to the fire, caused her to open her eyes, and then she opened her mouth, and in was popped the piece of tender rabbit. She ate it, and then Von Marlo fed her by popping piece after piece into her mouth; and he gave her ginger-beer to drink; and when the supper was quite ended and the platter clean, he stepped back and said, “You must forgive the Grants; it was rather mischievous of them. But it was not Miss Rachel; it was Alex and Charley, and in especial it was Von Marlo’s fault. Now you will forgive Von Marlo?”

He dropped on one knee, and put on the most comical face I had ever seen; then he looked up at her, wiping one of his eyes, and winking and blinking with the other. Hannah absolutely laughed.

“Oh, you children, you children!” she exclaimed.

It was a most wonderful victory. We knew now she would not scold, and it had a marvellous effect upon us. I rushed to her and flung my arms round her neck and kissed and hugged her. Alex said, “Good old Hannah!” and Charley crouched down by her side and said, “Rub my hair the wrong way; you know how I like it, Hannah.”

Then Von Marlo said, “I’m not going to be out of it,” and he planted himself with his broad back firmly against her knees; and thus we all sat, with Hannah in the centre, making a sort of queen in the midst. She had ceased to weep, and was smiling.

“Dear, dear!” she said; “but I never was too hard on real mischievousness; it’s naughtiness as angers me. Oh, my sakes! Charley, my lamb, I remember you when you were nothing more than a baby.”

“But I was your pet, Hannah,” I said. “Tell me that I was your pet.”

“But you were nothing of the sort,” said Hannah. “I will own that I was always took with looks. Now, Alex has looks.”

“And I. I have looks too,” said Charley. “I was gazing at my face in the glass this morning, and I saw that I had beautiful, dark, greyey-blue eyes.”

“It’s very wrong to encourage vanity,” said Hannah. “Well, Dumps will always be spared that temptation. But sakes! I must take away the things. What a mess you have made of the place! And whoever in the name of fortune fried up that rabbit? It was the most appetising morsel I ever ate in the whole course of my life.”

“I shall have much pleasure in writing out the recipe and giving it to you,” said Von Marlo, dropping again on one knee, and now placing his hand across his heart. “Fairest of women, beloved Hannah, queen of my heart, I shall write out that recipe and give it to you.”

“Oh my!” said Hannah, “you are worse than the Dutch dolls; but you do make me laugh like anything.”

Part 1, Chapter XI

Mother’s Miniature

The supper was at an end. I was in my room.

Now was the time to look at mother’s picture. The hunger in my heart was now to be satisfied. For many long years I had wanted to be the possessor of that portrait, which I knew existed, but which I had never seen. How easily I had got possession of it in the end! It was queer, for we had all been afraid to speak of mother to father. He had said once that he could not stand it, and after that we never mentioned her name. But she was my mother. I had envied girls who had mothers, and yet some girls did not appreciate them. There was Augusta, for instance; how rude and insufferable she was to her mother! She called her commonplace. Now, I could have been very happy with Mrs Moore. I could have been quite glad to be kissed by her and fondled by her, and to sit with her and encourage her to tell me stories about herself. And I could have helped her with her needlework, and to keep the place tidy; and I should have enjoyed going with her to dine with Uncle Charles – whoever Uncle Charles might be. But there was Augusta, who did not care a bit about her mother, but wanted to be the daughter of my father. Oh yes, she was right; it was a strange, mixed world.

Well, I had the picture of mother, and I was going to look at it to-night. I lit three or four pieces of candle in honour of the great occasion, and then I drew my chair near the ugly little dressing-table, and I took the case and opened it. The picture within had been carefully painted; it was a miniature, and a good one, I am sure, for it looked quite alive. The eyes seemed to speak to me; the gentle mouth looked as though it would open with words of love for me. It was the sort of mouth I should like to kiss. The face was very young. I had imagined that all mothers must be older than that. It was a girlish face.

“It was because no one understood her that she died,” I said to myself. “Hannah said she was killed. Hannah spoke nonsense, of course.”

Tears filled my eyes.

“Darling, I would have loved you,” I murmured. “I’d have made so much of you! You wouldn’t have been a bit angry with Dumps for not resembling you. You’d have let me kiss you and kiss you, and your hungry heart would not have pined and pined. Why didn’t you live just a little longer, darling – just until I grew up, and Alex grew up, and Charley grew up? Why didn’t you, dearest, darling?”

My tears flowed. I gazed at the picture many, many times. Finally I put it under my pillow.

In the middle of the night I woke, and my first thought was of the picture and of the mother whom it represented. I clasped it tightly to my breast and hugged it. Oh yes, the picture of my mother was better than nothing.

The next morning I got up with a sense of relief at knowing that father would be away for at least a couple of days. It was a sadly wrong feeling; but then I held mother’s picture, and father had not understood mother, and mother had died. Killed! – that was what Hannah had said – killed because she had not had enough sunshine.

“It was such a pity you didn’t wait for me! I’d have made things sunshiny for you,” I thought.

I ran downstairs. The boys had had their breakfast and had already gone to school; but there was a little pot of coffee inside the fender, some bread-and-butter on the table, and a jug of cold milk and some sugar. It was one of Hannah’s unpleasant ways that she never would make the milk hot for the children’s coffee. She said cold milk was good enough for them.

But there was something else also on the table. There was a letter – a letter addressed to me. Now, when you hardly ever get letters, you are interested. I had been terribly excited about Miss Donnithorne’s letter; and now here was another, but it was not written by Miss Donnithorne; it was in father’s handwriting. What could father have to say to me? He had never written to me before in the whole course of my life. I took the letter in my hand.

“I wonder if he is coming back to-day,” I thought.

I felt rather sad at this thought, for there was quite a lot of money left and we could have another good supper to-night.

Then I opened the letter and read its contents. They were quite brief. These were the words I read:

“My dear Rachel, – I have just done what I trust will contribute much to your happiness. I have been united in marriage with Grace Donnithorne. I will bring your new mother back on Sunday evening. Try and have the house as nice as possible. My dear child, I know well what a great happiness lies before you in the tender care and affection of this admirable woman. – Your affectionate Father.”

I read the letter twice, but I could not comprehend it. I read it in a misty sort of way, and then I put it on the table and went to the window and gazed out into the street. There was no fog this morning; there was even a little attempt at watery sunshine. I remembered that if I was not quick I should be late for school; and then it did not seem to matter whether I went to school or not. I took up the letter again. What was the matter with my eyes? I rubbed them. Was I going blind? No, no – of course not. I could see perfectly. I read the words, “I have been united in marriage with Grace Donnithorne.”

United in marriage! That meant that father had married Grace Donnithorne, the lady I had stayed with on Saturday and Sunday and Monday and part of Tuesday. She was – oh no, what nonsense! – she was nothing of the sort; I would not even allow my lips to frame the words.

I tore the letter up into little fragments and thrust the fragments into the fire. I kept saying to myself, “Nonsense! it isn’t true! Father was in one of his dreams!”

I deliberately poured out my coffee and drank it; I cut a hunk of bread, buttered it, and ate it. All the time I was saying fiercely to myself, “It isn’t true; it is a practical joke that father is playing on me.”

I was so fiercely, terribly indignant with myself for even allowing the thought of that word, which from ordinary lips would be applied to Miss Donnithorne, to come so near my own lips, that I had no time to remember that father was the very lost man to play a practical joke on any one.

Hannah came into the room. I looked at Hannah. Her face was quite unsmiling, quite everyday. If it was true Hannah would know – certainly Hannah would know; she would be the last person to be kept in ignorance.

“Why, Miss Dumps – sakes alive, child! You’ll be late for school. Hurry up. Whatever are you pondering about? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. What should be the matter? Hannah, I have got a little money; father left it with me.”

“That’s something queer,” said Hannah. “How much did he give you?”

“Five shillings.”

“My word! Sakes alive! The man must have lost his senses!”

When Hannah said this I rushed up to her, and clasped both her hands, and said, “Oh Hannah, Hannah darling, say that again – say it again!”

“Whatever am I to say over again? I’ve no time to repeat my words.”

“Oh Hannah, do say it once more! Father has lost – ”

“What little sense he ever had,” said Hannah. “Don’t keep me, Dumps.”

She had laid a hideous iron tray on the table, and with a noisy clatter she put the cups and saucers on it.

“When people have lost their senses they say and do all sorts of queer things, don’t they?” I asked.

“My word, child, they do!”

“And other people, when they know that they have lost their senses, don’t believe them?”

“Believe ’em? Who’d ever believe what people who have gone crazy say and do?”

I rushed up to Hannah and hugged and kissed her.

“I’ll be in time for school,” I said, “for I’ll run all the way. Get me a little chop for dinner – please do, Hannah; and – and to-night we’ll have supper, and we’ll ask Von Marlo, and you shall come and have supper with us, dear, darling Hannah!”

Hannah grinned.

“You’re wonderful coaxing in your ways just now, Dumps. I can’t make out what sort of maggot you’ve got in your head. But there! you shall have your chop; it’s as cheap as anything else.”

I always brought my hat and jacket down with me when I came to breakfast; now I put them on and went off to school. I really was very ridiculous; but I always was wanting in common-sense. I forced myself to believe that father’s letter was a sort of practical joke, and I was comfortably conning over the fact that we would have another jolly evening to-night, and that he doubtless would have forgotten all about having ever put pen to paper when he returned home, when I saw a number of my schoolfellows waiting for me just round the corner which led into the great school. Amongst them was Augusta Moore. But Augusta Moore, who might have been a sort of refuge from the ordinary girls, was now flanked on the right hand by Rita Swan and on the left by Agnes Swan; and there were several other girls behind this trio. When they saw me they all shouted, “Here she is! Here she is!” and they made for me in a body.

I stood still when I saw them advancing. It wasn’t that they came slowly; they came in a great rush as from a catapult. They drew up when they got within a few inches of me. Then Rita said, “We were making a bet about you.”

“A bet?” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Augusta said you would come; Agnes and I said you wouldn’t.”

“Why should I come?” I said.

“Well,” exclaimed Rita, “I know most girls would take a holiday on the day after their father’s wedding. Most girls would – but you!”

“What do you mean?” I said.

My face was as white as a sheet then, I knew, for I felt very cold, and my eyes were smarting, and that dimness was coming over them again.

“Oh, there, there!” said Augusta Moore.

She wrenched herself away from the Swans, and came up to me and took my hand. I don’t exactly know what followed next; I only knew that there was a great buzzing, and a number of people were talking, and I knew that Augusta went on saying, “There, there, dear!” Finally I found myself walking away from school, led by Augusta – away from school, and towards home. I was making no protest of any sort whatever.

At last we reached our own house, and Augusta looked wistfully at the tall steps which led to the front door; but she said, “I am not coming in with you, for I know you would rather be alone. It must be a fearful trial for you to have that noble, exalted father of yours united in marriage to such a very commonplace woman as Miss Donnithorne. I feel for you, from the bottom of my heart. Kiss me; I am truly sorry for you.”

Of course, I could not go to school that day. I allowed Augusta to print a little kiss – a tiny, tiny kiss – on my forehead, and then I waited until Hannah opened the door. I felt so stupid that perhaps I should not have rung the bell at all; but Augusta, roused out of herself for the time being, had performed this office for me, and when Hannah opened the door I crept into the house and sank down on a chair.

“Hannah,” I said – “Hannah, it is true, and he hasn’t taken leave of his senses. He was united in marriage yesterday with Grace Donnithorne. Oh Hannah! Oh Hannah!”

Perhaps I expected Hannah to show great surprise; but all she really did was to kneel down beside me, and open her arms wide, and say, “Come, then, honey! Come, then, honey!” and she clasped me in her bony arms and drew my head down to rest on her breast. Then I had relief in a burst of tears. I cried long. I cried as I had not cried since I could remember, for no one in the old house had time for tears; tears were not encouraged in that austere, neglected abode.

After a time Hannah lifted me up, just as though I were a baby, and conveyed me into the parlour. There she laid me on two chairs, and put cushions under my head, and said, “I have got a drop of strong broth downstairs, and you shall have it.”

I enjoyed being coddled and petted by Hannah, and we both, by a sort of tacit consent, agreed not to allude for the present to the terribly painful topic which had at last intruded itself upon us. After I had taken the soup I felt better and was able to sit up. Then Hannah squatted down in front of the fire and looked into it. I observed that her own eyes were red; but all she did was to sway herself backwards and forwards and say, “Dearie me! Oh, my word! Dearie me!”

At last the mournful sort of chant got upon my nerves. I jumped up with alacrity.

“Hannah, the boys will be in soon. We must tell them, and we must get the place in order, and – ”

“Miss Dumps!” cried Hannah.

She spoke in a loud, shrill voice. “If you think, Miss Dumps, even for a single minute, that I’m going to put up with it, you’ve mistook me, that’s all.”

“But what are you going to do, Hannah? You won’t leave us, will you?”

“Leave you? Go out of the house into which I came when Master Alex was a baby, bless him! and when you were but a tiny, tiny tot! Leave the house? No, it ain’t me as ’ull do that.”

“Then, Hannah, what will you do?”

I went up to her and took one of her hands. She gave it unwillingly.

“Dumps,” she said. She was still huddled by the fire. I had never seen her so subdued or broken-down before, and it was only when I heard her voice rise in shrill passion that I recognised the old Hannah. “Dumps, is it you who is going to submit tame – you, who had a mother?”