Part I Chapter 10 Dumps — A Plain Girl by L. T. Meade
A Very Queer Chum
I went to tea with Augusta Moore. She was full of raptures with regard to the tickets which I had brought her. She turned in the street and kissed me quite demonstratively; but the next moment she lapsed into one of her brown studies.
“Do look out,” I said; “you will be run over.”
“As if that mattered,” said Augusta.
“As if what mattered?” I asked.
“Why, what you said just now. Don’t interrupt me. I am puzzling out a thought which will lead to—oh! it has gone—don’t speak; it will come back if you keep quiet. There, I’ve nearly caught it!”
“Oh Augusta!” I said, “you mustn’t talk in that way while we are walking in this street.”
I clutched her by the arm.
“Guide me, Dumps; guide me, commonplace Dumps; then I shall be able to think in peace.”
I guided her then very steadily. We walked up Queen’s Road. Queen’s Road is a long street.
“I thought,” I said, “that you lived somewhere near Inverness Terrace, close to the Twopenny Tube.” Augusta pulled up short.
“What have you been doing?” she said.
“What have I been doing?” I answered.
“Why, you’ve led me more than half a mile away from home, and mother will be very much annoyed.”
“Well, you must wake up and get me there in some sort of fashion,” I said, “for I cannot possibly guide myself when I don’t know where you live.”
Thus adjured, and by dint of constant pokes, and even pinches, I did manage to take Augusta to her own home. There was a lift which would take us to her mother’s flat at the top of the great house; but she was a quarter way up the stairs before I was able to remind her of the fact. She then said it didn’t matter, and began to quote from The Ancient Mariner, saying the words aloud. People looked at her as they came downstairs. One lady said, “How do you do, Miss Moore?” but Augusta did not make any reply.
At last we arrived at the very top of the house, and as there were no more stairs of any sort to go up, we had to pause here.
“Now, which door are we to knock at?” I said. Augusta pointed to one.
“We’re awfully late,” she said. “Mother will be terrible I shall go into my own room until she subsides. You won’t mind listening to her; you will probably agree with her. You are fearfully commonplace yourself. Two commonplaces together make—oh! I ought to be able to say something very smart and witty on that subject, but I can’t. I am going to cultivate smart sayings. I believe it is possible to cultivate them. The spirit of repartee can be produced with care. I have read about it; it is possible. A person who can make good repartees is much appreciated, don’t you know?”
“Oh yes, yes; but do knock at the door, or let me.” She approached the door, but before she could raise her hand to ring the bell she turned to me again.
“What is the subject of your father’s next lecture?”
“I’m sure I don’t know from Adam,” I replied.
“What a vulgar way of expressing it! How terrible to think you are his child!”
“Augusta,” I said, “there is one thing that puzzles me. I am the Professor’s child, and doubtless I am commonplace; but I am glad of it, for I wouldn’t be like you for all the world.”
“I don’t want you to envy me,” she said. “I never ask any one to envy me. Those who are geniuses are above anything of that sort.”
“But I should like to ask you a question.”
“What is it? Has it something to do with the great departed, or—”
“It has not,” I said. “It is, how do you ever manage to get to school in the morning? Are you awake? Can you get along the streets? Are you always in a dream as you are now?”
“Mary Roberts, who also comes to the school, but who is in a very inferior class, calls for me. She has done that ever since I lost my way in a distant part of Regent’s Park and was very much scolded by my teacher. I forgot the school; I forgot everything that day. I was puzzling out a problem. Your father could reply to it.”
I made no answer to this, except to pull the bell vigorously myself. This brought Mrs Moore on to the scene. It was a great relief to see a placid-looking, blue-eyed little lady, neatly and nicely dressed, who said, “Augusta, late as usual! And this is your dear little friend.—How do you do, Miss Grant? Come in, dear—come in.”
“Mother,” said Augusta, “while you are on the scold, you may as well scold Miss Grant, or Dumps, as we call her. I am going to my room. I have received two tickets for the next great meeting of the Royal Society. I shall live in bliss with the thought of those tickets until that night. You are to come with me.”
“What night is your father’s lecture?” asked Mrs Moore, glancing at me.
“Next Wednesday,” I answered.
“We cannot possibly go on Wednesday; you know that, Augusta. It is your uncle Charles’s birthday, and we have both been invited to dine with him; he would never forgive us if we did not go.”
“Just as you please, mother, as far as you are concerned. I shall go,” said Augusta; and she went into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
Mrs Moore gave one patient sigh. “Would you like to take your jacket off?” she said.
I hastily removed it. She began to pour boiling water into the teapot. The little room was very neat and clean, and there was quite a cosy, appetising tea spread on the board.
“I have heard a great deal about your father, my dear,” said Mrs Moore after a pause. “And now I also hear about you. I am glad to welcome you here. You are Augusta’s special friend, are you not?”
“Oh, I know her very well,” I said.
“She told me to-day at dinner that you wished to be a chum of hers. She said she was willing. I felt quite relieved, for I think it would be very good for Augusta to have a sort of human influence; she needs human influence so badly.”
“But can’t she get it, Mrs Moore?” I asked. “Surely it is all round her?”
“Well, dear, the fact is, she always stays amongst the dry bones; that’s what I call that terrible sort of learning which she so clings to. Not a word when she comes out, my love. I assure you it is quite a comfort to confide in you.”
She motioned to me to draw my chair to the table. I sat down.
“You look quite an interesting person,” said Mrs Moore.
“Oh no, I am not at all interesting,” I replied.
“Here is a cup of tea, love.” She handed me one.
“Ought I not,” I said, “to wait for Augusta?”
“Dear me, no! on no account. She will probably not come in at all. Doubtless by now she has forgotten that you are in the house.”
I could not help laughing.
“But doesn’t she ever eat?”
“I bring her her food. She takes it then without knowing what she is taking. She is a very strange child.”
“Well,” I said as I helped myself to a very nice piece of hot cake, “I don’t think I should have got her here to-day without pinching and poking her. She took me quite a long way round. I believe,” I added, “that I shall not be able to get back, for I don’t know this part of London well.”
“I will take you to the Twopenny Tube myself, dear. Don’t imagine for a single instant that you will see anything more of Augusta.”
When I discovered that this was really the case I gave myself up to the enjoyment of Mrs Moore’s pleasant society. She was a very nice woman, not at all commonplace—at least, if that meant commonplace, it was a very good thing to be. She was practical, and had a great deal of sense. She talked to me about my life, and about my father, and said she wished we lived a little nearer.
“You must sadly want a lady friend, my dear,” she said.
Then she stared at me very hard, and I saw a curious change come over her face.
“Perhaps you will have one in the future,” was her next remark.
“Oh yes,” I answered briskly, “I have one now—a most dear, sweet lady. She came to see me quite a short time ago, and I went to stay with her last Saturday, and came home only last night. I love her dearly; her name is Miss Grace Donnithorne.”
“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 weariness
Of 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.”